Mr. Seán Quigley:

Taking into account the point on reducing exposure to risk, the courts are giving much bigger awards. One can afford, therefore, to invest those awards in a lower-risk environment whereas in the past this was not the environment in which those awards were determined. Therefore, the Courts Service was left in circumstances in which there was an amount of money that would not last unless it sought to grow it. The only option to do that was to put it into a mix of equities and bonds. The proof is that this has been successful in maximising the value of the funds.