Mr. Conor Dignam:

We are not suggesting or advocating which court should deal with claims. We are not suggesting it should be the High Court. The reason we identified the Circuit Court as the appropriate court is that the Oireachtas has already identified the Circuit Court as being the appropriate court to deal with claims under section 3A of the Act. From a consistency point of view, we do not see any good reason to depart from the model that was put in place by the Oireachtas as recently as 2014 when the amendment was introduced.

On the substance of the point, which is whether a court based system would be a disincentive to individuals, the first point to note is that there is an appeals process in place. If the assessor model, as currently framed, is established, an individual can bring a claim to the assessor. If he or she is successful in that claim, the award is then appealable by the State and the appeal goes directly from the assessor to the High Court. This means the individual is then dragged into the High Court despite not wanting to be there. Avoiding a court based model at first instance does not avoid an individual ending up before the courts. For this reason, it seems to us there is no good reason the individual should not be permitted to go to court with his or her claim.

The second point is that individuals want their claims to be determined in a fair and transparent manner. As I mentioned, the European Court of Human Rights, ECHR, has clearly stated that the question of a delay and compensation for delay is one of complexity. An individual does not want his or her complex issue to be determined by an assessor on the basis of paperwork and written reports. Some cases will be straightforward but others will not. The claimant will want to have his or her say in regard to whether compensation should be awarded.

Equally, the assessor model deprives the State of the right to participate at that first stage. The claim is submitted and the State has no right to participate or make submissions on whether compensation should be awarded. If compensation is awarded, there is then an automatic appeal on the part of the State, not to the Circuit Court or District Court, but to the High Court. There does not seem to us to be the disincentive which Deputy Chambers mentions attached to a court based system as opposed to an assessor system. It would seem to us that the assessor system provides for greater curtailment on an individual's rights and entitlements to have his or her case disposed of fairly and transparently.