The Department for Communities has made the Pneumoconiosis, etc., (Workers’ Compensation) (Payment of Claims) (Amendment No. 2) Regulations (Northern Ireland) 2026, a further amendment to the payment rules used for lump-sum industrial disease compensation in Northern Ireland. The statutory rule was made on 5 October 2026 and, according to the text published on legislation.gov.uk, is subject to the Assembly’s affirmative resolution procedure. The start date is fixed as 31 October 2026, unless Assembly approval comes later. In that event, the regulations take effect on the day after affirmation. The measure is also prospective only: it applies where a person first meets the conditions for entitlement under the 1979 Order on or after commencement.
The regulations sit beneath the Pneumoconiosis, etc., (Workers’ Compensation) (Northern Ireland) Order 1979, which provides lump-sum payments to certain people disabled by industrial disease and to some dependants of people who were so disabled before death. The 1988 Payment of Claims Regulations set the amounts payable, using age and degree of disablement as central features of the calculation. This amendment does not create a new compensation scheme. It adjusts the existing payment machinery so that the award structure, decision points and payment routes are clearer. For advisers and claimant representatives, the practical position is that the same statutory scheme remains in place, but several features of the 1988 payment code have now been removed or rewritten.
The most material change is to how awards are structured for dependants. Regulation 4 is recast so that payments are determined by the table in the Schedule, and the Schedule itself removes the separate Table 2. The explanatory note states that the effect is to align payment rates for dependants with the rates for sufferers. Alongside that, the amending rule deletes a group of older provisions: regulation 5 on payment where death results from diffuse mesothelioma, regulation 6 on payment where pneumoconiosis is accompanied by tuberculosis, regulation 7 on the minimum amount payable to a dependant, and related text in the Schedule. The Department’s note says these changes remove top-up awards, so new cases will be assessed through a more unified schedule than under the previous rules.
A second group of amendments deals with outdated administrative drafting. The explanatory note says the amendment removes references to defunct assessment boards, and the operative text does that by deleting the definitions of 'medical board' and 'medical appeal tribunal'. 'Determination' is now tied to a determination made by the Department in connection with a claim for disablement benefit, while 'percentage assessment' is updated by reference to section 108 of the Social Security Contributions and Benefits (Northern Ireland) Act 1992 and the former Industrial Injuries Acts. One provision for dependant claims is also rewritten so that the relevant percentage is determined by a medical practitioner appointed to act on behalf of the Department, rather than by a medical board. In administrative terms, that brings the payment regulations into line with the decision-making structure currently used by the social security system.
The Schedule is also amended to fix a clearer date for calculating an award. For a living claimant under regulation 3, the age used is the person’s age on the date the Department receives the claim. For a dependant’s claim under regulation 4, the age used is the deceased sufferer’s age on the date of death. The applicable payment rate is the rate in force on the relevant date for each category. That drafting matters because payment disputes can turn on timing. By placing the relevant date directly in the regulations, the Department has reduced uncertainty about whether a later administrative step changes the award figure. Claim handlers will now need to focus closely on the claim receipt date and, in death cases, the date of death, because those dates drive the calculation.
A new regulation 4A addresses the position where a claimant dies after making a claim but before payment is made. In those cases, the regulations now require payment to be made to the claimant’s personal representatives, provided the Department has received legally sufficient evidence of probate, letters of administration, or confirmation as executor. For bereaved families, solicitors and welfare rights advisers, this is one of the clearest operational changes in the instrument. It sets out, in express terms, who can receive the money and what documentary evidence must be produced. That gives the Department a defined legal route for paying claims that were made during life but were not completed before death.
The limits of the change are as important as the amendments themselves. By virtue of regulation 1(2), the new rules do not reopen older cases in which entitlement was first met before commencement. Existing awards and earlier entitlements remain governed by the previous framework, while new entitlements arising on or after commencement move to the amended scheme. Taken together, the 2026 amendments amount to a simpler payment code: one schedule rather than parallel tables, fewer legacy supplements, clearer timing rules and an express route for estate payments. For policy professionals in Northern Ireland, the significance lies less in widening eligibility than in standardising how the Department for Communities calculates and pays compensation under the 1979 Order.