Mr. Micheál P. O'Higgins:

What has been floating around for a long time is the idea of the possibility of bringing a constitutional action by reason of court delays. The idea of looking for compensation is new but it has been found that the most direct form of compensation for court delays in respect of stress, disappointment and so on is a financial award. As to when it first came into the system, I am not sure. What we have tracked in the paper is the number of cases that have progressed to the ECHR and the Strasbourg court has found that Ireland is in default and that remains the case.