Mr. Michael Horan:

Legal costs can add 40% to the cost of compensation in litigated cases. The whole point of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board was to try to reduce legal costs. This goes back to the point we made earlier that there is no point in bringing a case in which one is down on liability to the High Court or the Circuit Court and ending up with two sets of legal fees, that is, a solicitor and a barrister on both sides. In most motor claims the liability is clearcut: one can tell who is at fault for the accident and one works from that and tries to settle on the best possible terms. Unfortunately, we have a dysfunctional system in Ireland in the sense that the level of awards for personal injuries is very high. We need to address that. That is the defining issue and we need to try to recalibrate those awards. The judicial council, we are delighted to hear, will do that.