Mr. Paul Carty:

By their nature, these are extreme examples, but they illustrate a point. I ask the members to imagine a Transit van about to pull, rather than reverse, into a parking space. If one is pulling into a parking space, one will be going pretty slowly. As this Transit van was pulling into a parking space in rural Ireland, it glanced off the front of a people carrier in the space behind. Whether the people carrier was moving out at the time is another matter. Our chap moved in and claimed liability. As such, it was assessment only and one is not arguing about who was to blame. The garda who attended said it was hardly an accident at all.

According to the engineer's report we got, there was a pencil mark on our Transit van. There was some scraping on the other vehicle.

The bottom line is that the person in the other vehicle claimed €950 in damages for a car, which is neither here nor there, and actually got €380. There were two ladies in the car - one was pregnant - and four children. The final award was approximately €85,000 because of claims of psychological impairment to the four children. The courts have to rule on any award that one provides. We offered more than €3,000 per child, for example, but the judge would only rule for a minimum of €7,500 because of allegations that the children were wetting their beds. Nevertheless, €380 of physical damage was done to the vehicles and the cost was approximately €84,000. I am not saying that the children might not have deserved that but what questions were asked and how would one challenge that?

I have a case this week involving a Jeep. Our insured driver ran into the back of a Jeep. It was a tap. Our insured driver had a cracked number plate. The Jeep had a tow bar. There was an impact on that and damage done to the radio. The Jeep's driver is claiming €500 because orange juice spilled on the radio. Two people were in the Jeep and we have received a solicitor's letter. The process will go to the Injuries Board but the dance has started. God knows where it will take us.

Given our day to day experience, we believe that the Injuries Board was a terrific revolution under Ms Dowling's guidance - it needs to be reviewed and we would like to see it enhanced in some shape or form - but many assessments are rejected by clients. This means that cases automatically enter the court system. Hypothetically, if the Injuries Board offers €15,000 and the person feels that he or she can get more, we must pay two sets of lawyers. We are threatened with a Circuit Court action. Given that court's jurisdiction, we are threatened with the certainty of having to pay out approximately €20,000 in costs. We would not want that action to proceed in the court, particularly given the medical and legal costs, so we would put an extra few bob on top of what the Injuries Board was going to give. In an economic sense, one would be rewarding the non-acceptance purely to avoid costs running out of control.