Mr. Martin McMahon:

The Denny case started as a Scope decision that Sandra Mahon was an employee. That case was not overturned by the social welfare appeals office. It was appealed from the social welfare appeals office to the High Court. It was the State that paid. That is an important point. If the social welfare appeals office overturns the decision, it is the worker who must pay in the higher courts, not the State. That is the basic problem with all this. It is prohibitive. It took six years and hundreds of thousands of euro in legal fees for the State to defend the Sandra Mahon Denny case.