Mr. Peter Boland:

I will take the questions in order. In terms of settlements, this needs to be understood because there was almost a myth that developed over the years that insurers picked up the tab for all of these claims. Insurers do not pick up the tab. They are businesses and they need to make a profit, and that is fair enough. They take whatever the cost is and they pass it on to policyholders. For every claim, right and wrong, the cost of that claim is passed on to policyholders.

It is important to note that if someone has been injured due to the negligence of somebody else, they must be compensated adequately in that situation. I do not think anyone would undermine that and it is the heart of the process, but the issue is the costs those sorts of claims attract.

It is quite starkly illustrated by table 26. Essentially, anything that goes beyond PIAB is not about delivering additional compensation. There is a strong role for the courts in far more difficult, complex or major injuries. The figures change when one gets to the €500 million mark. Certainly, however, PIAB is very well suited to dealing with the vast majority of claims, such as the everyday minor injuries.

I would make an additional comment on this area, to which I referred in the text that we read out. We find that insurers will settle as a commercial expedient. If they have a file on their desk on which there is a total reserve of, for example, €75,000, and if they feel that they can get away in negotiations with €50,000 all-in, they will settle, regardless of the right or wrong of the case. This is infuriating from the perspectives of our members. They seek cases that have gone to PIAB and on into litigation where they know that it is a try-on, that it is fraudulent in a broader sense or that it is exaggerated. In our view, we get no protection in many cases from insurers in that area. It is all the more important now that they do not do that anymore, because seeking to do that would fundamentally undermine the judicial guidelines. If a narrative emerges that one can take a case from PIAB, go into litigation and get a few bob extra by dealing directly with the insurer, that will undermine the work of this House on the judicial guidelines, which remain a fundamental reform to the sector.

I will address the other issues that the Deputy raised. In terms of periodic scrutiny, to be pragmatic about it and to echo what Ms Murdock said about the need to move this on, we would suggest that if we were to review it, we should review the current legislation on it. It might become too complex if we were to draw the principal legislation into it as well.

On the Deputy’s third point, which was on InsuranceLink, the story stands for itself. The preliminary view of the European Commission is that it was used as an anti-competitive tool. We would like to see it owned by an arm of the State for the common good and in the interests of the citizens of the State.