Mr. Ciaran Phelan:

Since I am not a constitutional lawyer, I cannot really answer from a constitutional perspective. However, I can outline what we have seen and what has been documented, although Ms Dowling may dispute these facts. In Ireland, apparently, compensation for whiplash is far higher than in other jurisdictions, including in the United Kingdom and France, for example. I am pleased Mr. Carty is at the committee. He is a manager in a general agent, a quasi-insurer. If the committee is willing to hear it, he can share some of the actual cases of exaggeration of fraudulent claims. Senator Conway-Walsh is perfectly right: insurance is all about covering financial loss when the insured body or person suffers a catastrophic event. Claims should always be paid but if there are exaggerated or fraudulent claims in the system, it impacts on all of us negatively. It will feed back into premiums and we all end up paying more than we need to on the basis of that.