Mr. Declan Doyle:

I endorse everything that has been said. It is unusual that people who represent, by and large, different sides of cases, and indeed a former judge in that, should have such unanimity on how the law should look. I respectfully suggest to the committee that in itself is indicative of the good faith of the various actors in this room.

I absolutely agree with the last thing that Ms Harty said about section 26 and Fr. Ted’s car. It is all in the written submissions. I would extrapolate from that the same idea in relation to the proposals in the report about damages, for example. There are a number of things in there that should now be added. The judge or jury, in assessing damages, should be told of various things, for example, A, B, C, D, E, and the jury should be told they must have regard to the value of money. These things happen all the time anyway in the hands of a competent trial judge. Overcomplicating section 26, section 31, damages – all of these things – leads to greater uncertainty rather than less uncertainty and leads to more disputes, more litigation and more costs. Simple is good. I respectfully suggest to the Oireachtas to try to keep it utterly simple and then let the lawyers and judges get on with interpreting that.