Mr. Stephen Watkins:

We allow legal fees in certain circumstances such as where there is a minor involved or a person under 18 years of age has had an accident. When we make an award in those cases, a court will ultimately have to rule on the quantum of damages. There are other certain circumstances depending on the capacity of the individual and his or her ability to transact with this. We would allow fees in such cases. Another example would be in public liability cases where there would be a difficulty in identifying who is the person at fault. The typical person might not be able to determine who is at fault because there could be several people involved.

The total amount we allow in fees annually is less than €1.5 million a year, which would have a negligible impact on the cost of insurance. On Mr. Conor O'Brien’s point about the numbers who deal with solicitors, since 2006 when the O’Brien Supreme Court decision was given, we have had 90% to 95% of people using a solicitor. It is currently 93% and it has not changed over the past three years. We still have 2,000 people a year who will make their claim directly to the board. Over the past ten years, there was only one occasion where fewer than 90% of people used a solicitor. That was in 2008 when we embarked on an extensive advertising campaign which had the impact of bringing it down to 88% for a short period. However, that was not sustainable in the long-term.

We have carried out research as to why people would use a solicitor and there are valid reasons as to why people would prefer to have somebody dealing with us on their behalf. The main point is that there has been no change over the past number of years.