Seán Fleming (Laois, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We will let someone else talk to Mr. Dorgan about that. I am moving on to the State Claims Agency legal costs on page 41. I have often raised this before. This is the "good public relations" that is done. On legal costs, "in 2017, the SCA settled 440 bills of costs received from third parties for €55.2 million - a reduction of 48% on the €106.9 million claimed". One would be forgiven for thinking that great work had been done in reducing the payments on legal fees but when we turn over the page we see that is an artificial figure being compared. It is comparable to saying someone sent in a bill but I did not pay it and so saved money. We will look at the details on page 44 of what actually happened beyond that headline.

I am looking on page 44 where the cost of claims resolved from 2013 to 2017 are detailed on a chart. I refer to the average cost per claim. The clinical claims are dealt with first. I am referring to the legal fees for the State Claims Agency and the plaintiff, to the average cost per claim set out in the second column down. The average cost per claim for the SCA for clinical claims is stated to be €23,000 and the legal fees for the plaintiff were €41,000. That means that €62,000 on average was paid per claim. Mr. Breen is reading the same chart. The award was €130,000. In other words, legal costs in respect of awards in 2017 were 49% of the legal awards. For every €100 of settlement to the individual there was an additional 49% in legal costs. Is that correct? That is correct.

I will go back to 2004 and I could go back to other years. In 2004, €48 million was paid out in legal fees on settlements. A sum of €48,000 was the average legal fee on the average settlement of €93,000, which is 48%. There has been no real reduction in legal fees. The SCA's percentage of legal fees, as long as I am sitting here, is running at approximately 50% of the settlements. If I look at the previous page of the report, it is stated that there was a 48% reduction in legal fees. Misleading is the most generous word I would put on that. The SCA has not reduced anything. These are the SCA's own figures.

I will go down then to the general claims, the column below the previous one. It is the same situation. I will not read the figures out loud. I have looked at the money for 2017. The legal fees paid out were €13.6 million which is 55% of the award of €24.7 million. That is 55% and that was the rate the previous year and in 2014. In respect of the payments, and we have been told about the payments increasing, the percentage of the legal fees is fairly static at in or around 50% for years. Yet the SCA is telling us, and the public would believe it if the details were not looked into, that legal costs have been reduced by 48%. That is the SCA's big chart on page 41. It does not gel. Does Mr. Breen get what I am saying? That is not a real headline, it is a public relations job.