Mr. Ciaran Breen:

When the clinical indemnity scheme was originally established in July 2002, it did not include consultants' liabilities. They were indemnified by medical defence organisations. With effect from 1 February 2004, consultants came in. In terms of the time lag between incidents and claims, one would begin to see claims coming in only a number of years after the incident. This is particularly the case in obstetrics, where one would see cerebral palsy cases, which are much more expensive, coming through only a number of years afterwards. For example, cerebral palsy cases are capable of being diagnosed only when the infant is two years of age. Prior to that, one cannot make what is called an absolute diagnosis. The lag time in terms of the cost of the claims suddenly began to kick in. Our actuaries, in terms of the actuarial model for the scheme, recognising that 2,500 consultants were now to be indemnified under it, noted it would follow that path exactly.