Mr. Robert Watt:

The Attorney General set out the Government's legal strategy in his report. I have nothing to add to what he said. He made it clear that there was a robust defence in each of these cases and that there ultimately were compromises, those being settlements. The State was looking for a test case that would allow for a view to be reached on the legal principles. A suitable one did not arise. Ultimately, the matter fell away because the cases stopped coming. If they had proceeded at pace and in higher volumes, the State might have taken a different approach and a test case would have been identified and gone to court to test whether there was a basis that could be upheld in court for these cases.