Funder: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) 

Duration of Project: August 2023 – December 2023

Lead on Project: The Rediscovery Centre

Status: Closed

Introduction: 

Community repair organisations/events in Ireland have experienced significant difficulty in obtaining access to product liability insurance in recent years. This project sought to confirm the reality of this problem in the Irish repair landscape and to identify potential pathways to solving the problem. Potential solutions identified by this project include the creation of a group scheme for repair cafés and professionalisation measures to increase the predictability of repair café activities which, in turn, increases the attractiveness of these events for insurers. 

This was done through extensive engagement with stakeholders from both the repair café community and the insurance industry. Semi-structured interviews were carried out over the course of several months and the findings were presented at an event, the recording of which can be found below.

Background:

The process of trying to obtain product liability insurance for repair cafés requires an extremely large input of time and resources and is almost invariably unsuccessful. What’s more, if a repair café is run without product liability insurance, then the repair café organiser may be liable to personally pay compensation for any harm or damage caused by the repair café activities. 

Engagement with stakeholders has demonstrated that this is a real problem for people looking to organise repair cafés and acts as both a barrier and a deterrent to repair cafés in Ireland. Ireland has a relatively low number of repair cafés per capita compared to many other EU countries, and insurance has been identified as a primary reason why this might be. 

 

Objectives:

The primary objective of this project was to identify a pathway to providing product liability insurance to Irish repair cafés to enable them to repair electrical goods without leaving themselves open to legal action. 

Another objective of the project was to identify moments in policymaking that could potentially be exploited to create a legal basis for removing the insurance barrier to repair. 

Finally, the project aimed to provide support and advice to Irish repair cafés seeking insurance. This was done in the form of the final event for the project, which was recorded and disseminated to existing and prospective repair cafés around the country. 

 

Conclusion:

This project engaged with a wide variety of stakeholders and brought the problem of insurance for community repair into the minds of insurers and policymakers. The project gathered important data that can be used to support the case for policy interventions and additional funding to support repair cafés, which will be vital for the transition to a more circular economy. 

 

Meta:

Tagged under: