Mr. Michael Horan:

I was on the old Motor Insurance Advisory Board. Insurance Ireland and the companies did a huge amount of work at the time but I do not deny there were difficulties along the way.

There were two MIAB reports. In the second one the MIAB says, in fairness to Insurance Ireland at the time, that we co-operated hugely and implemented many of the recommendations. We respect the work of the chairperson of the MIAB at that time, Dorothea Dowling. She did a lot of good work and many reforms resulted from it.

We want to try to put forward solutions to the problem. The example I gave from the Injuries Board is something that could be done reasonably easily. In terms of award levels, insurance companies accept 95% of the awards from the Injuries Board. A total of 31 judicial reviews were taken against the Injuries Board over ten years by the legal profession. We did not undertake any such reviews. We have wholeheartedly supported the Injuries Board since its foundation. As far as we are concerned the more not-at-fault cases we can bring to the Injuries Board, the better because then we do not get back into the situation we had in the past of a Mexican stand-off between the two sides and cases being litigated all the way to the steps of the court. The further we go down that road, the higher the legal costs. We want to avoid that.