Mr. Ciarán Breen:

Maybe I could give the Deputy an example of it. Obviously, there are two aspects to our costs. There are our own costs - the costs of our own solicitors and barristers - and then we have the plaintiff's costs. We had a case in which the professional fee of a plaintiff's solicitor was €485,000 in a catastrophic injury case and we could not get any agreement, and therefore went to the taxation of cost system. The fee was ultimately reduced to €267,000. That was appealed further to the High Court and it was affirmed by the High Court that that was the proper reduction. Unfortunately, the Court of Appeal has now indicated that it has set aside that judgment, so that might have an effect. However, that particular case had a fairly dramatic effect in terms of the number of settled costs that we got over a period of time.

In relation to our own costs, we carried out procurement for barristers in which we got them to tender in an open tender competition. We imposed caps and limits, and we did the same with our own solicitors. The combined effect of all of those things has driven down costs, but it is an ever-difficult challenge for us. I could not say to the Deputy, given what has happened in this latest Court of Appeal decision, that we will always be as successful as we have been over the last period. In fact, one may see costs rise if this decision has effect, particularly in relation to lower and medium-value cases.