Mr. Paul Carty:

An awful lot of common sense is being offered here. As everybody has said, there is no one single solution. It is a combination.

I will comment on some of the comments that have been made. One area that is very hard to manage involves soft tissue assessment-only cases where there is no liability. In this scenario, it has been determined that an accident, frequently of a very minor nature, has occurred. It can involve soft tissue injury or a psychological impairment of some kind. From the insurance industry's perspective, what is a bit frustrating is that sometimes one can have an engineering report that shows that an accident was of an extremely minor nature but those making the assessment such as the Injuries Board, the courts subsequently or the system must take on board the medical opinions here. In our experience, the medical opinions are not often read in conjunction with the engineering reports showing that they are very mild. As a consequence, one can have some dramatic cases where the actual assessment of the physical damage done to two vehicles can be under €500 but the award can be €80,000 or €90,000. People can suffer significant injuries in those circumstances but I think it is overplayed and we need some system that allows us to better assess the combination of the actual circumstances of an accident and the ultimate award provided. It is very difficult for the medical profession when members of the profession interview an individual who is trying to explain to them the nature of their injuries, for example, that they have a stiff neck. They cannot judge it. It is very difficult. Naturally, they tend to reiterate what the client has told them in the medical report. Producing evidence to that effect is always much more difficult except in severe cases, which are all too easy to identify and which we all accept must be properly compensated. However, there is a huge range with regard to what we are talking about and right now and I am not sure we are handling it properly.