Mr. John Maher:

The purpose is to reduce the incentive to go to court, as Deputy Shanahan said, or a kind of free bet, as Deputy Bruton said. It is to encourage claimants to realise that they will not necessarily be better off going to court and in fact could be considerably worse off. They need to ask whether it is worth taking that bet. It also provides certainty to the respondent in believing that the claimant will not beat that award. We think it should impact on costs by encouraging greater use of the PIAB model. That is the intention of the provision.