Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We are all totally sympathetic to anybody dealing with a serious injury. We heard from the car rental association this morning a suggestion that people are coming from other jurisdictions and faking crashes here in rental cars. It was suggested to us this morning that it is like insurance fraud tourism. We are trying to tease out everything we are hearing from all the different sides. Mr. Murphy makes a good point about the victims in that maybe we should try to hear from them if there is a way of getting to people who are involved. We are trying to find out why the average payout for whiplash is €15,000 - if that is the case - in this jurisdiction versus £5,000 in the UK, while it is almost non-existent in the rest of Europe. That is what this committee was told in earlier sessions. Has the witness any thoughts as to why we seem to have much greater payouts for whiplash in this country in comparison to other countries, if that is the case?