Mr. Neil McDonnell:

The Senator is absolutely right that an element of sanity has been introduced to proceedings by the Court of Appeal and, before that, the Supreme Court. They have introduced effective caps on what they call catastrophic damages. There are not a lot of figures out there on catastrophic damages but, interestingly, they suggest that Ireland's payouts in terms of those very serious injuries are not out of line internationally and may even be below international comparisons. This is not where the damage is being done.