Mr. Paul Redmond:

Yes. I served on MIAB years ago with Dorothea Dowling. We have been through all this before. This is nothing new. We have had these problems for years. We have had a dysfunctional system and, lo and behold, the legislators of the time came up with the personal injuries assessment board legislation and we all believed that would solve the problem.

Within months, however, we had a Supreme Court ruling that the legal profession had to be involved and that people were entitled to legal representation. As such, that one great reform has not been effective in achieving the objectives set out under the MIAB recommendations. If we could go back to that level and get that put right, we would go a long way towards solving that problem. We still have a problem with where we are on the book of quantum. For some reason, we have managed to get ourselves into the stratosphere in terms of some of these awards. It is not going to be that easy to fix. How does one go back? That may be a longer term project than reform of the procedures in the Injuries Board to curtail these whiplash and soft injuries claims. If we could ring-fence them and, in particular, those injuries involving tourists, it would be useful. We just do not have the facility to provide the same level of evidence as we do where a claim involves an Irish citizen.