Ms Dorothea Dowling:

I will give the Senator a quick response on that. Dr. Peter Bacon did a report for the Bar Council when they were trying to stop the Personal Injuries Assessment Board being set up and they estimated that it would cost ten times what it actually cost. It required 30 times the number of staff it actually cost, but he did an analysis of Ireland versus the other member states, which is helpful because they are not comparable. It is apples and oranges for a number of reasons. Some studies on that have been done with regard to costs also. Nevertheless, I have given the committee in the data the comparisons of the average motor claim in Ireland compared to the other member states, and we are within tipping distance of it.