Ms Isolde Goggin:

This whole area of no foal, no fee is interesting. As the Chairman pointed out, questions arise involving access to justice for people who otherwise would not be able to fund it. We have not looked specifically at the issue described by Deputy Kenny. It is the case, as he has pointed out, that there are perverse incentives for people not to pay close attention to fees being paid by someone else. That would, however, have to wash out through the role of the legal costs adjudicator, in that the person who ends up paying the costs can appeal the fees through an independent third-party body. It would have to be dealt with in that way. What would knock out false claims is them being thrown out by the courts. There is an incentive for people to enter into these things with a hope of winning where the claim may not be justified. That element of arbitrariness in judgments creates the incentive for these kinds of cases to be taken in the first place.