Ms Eileen Creedon:

In terms of recovering costs, our policy is to recover costs and to follow costs. We go through the same process. We pursue our costs and, if they are not forthcoming, we pursue them through the courts if necessary. Sometimes we run into difficulties if the costs were awarded in respect of a company that goes into liquidation. We have a significant number of lay litigants who take litigation against the State. In those cases, we would be pursuing costs against individuals and sometimes it might transpire that they simply do not have the means to pay the cost, although costs have been awarded against them. We are very conscious that this is taxpayers' money, so we do pursue it as far as we can. We also keep it under review. We review cases periodically to see whether a person's financial means have improved and-----