Mr. Brian Hanley:

There is a clear acknowledgement that legal costs are a significant part of the challenge in terms of the overall cost-of-claims pie and that they need to be looked at in more detail. The role of the Injuries Resolution Board was modified by the previous Government to try to attract and retain additional cases. There is absolutely no issue with people accessing legal advice for particularly complex or contentious cases. If they need to go to court, that is absolutely fine. However, it is difficult to believe that a good portion of the guts of 70% of liability cases are sufficiently intractable, contentious and complex that they could not be resolved at the Injuries Resolution Board. The numbers going to litigation are far too high and it is reasonable to ask questions as to why such a significant portion of cases are going that route. Hard questions need to be asked in that respect of the representatives because it is not clear why this is happening. If there is no obvious benefit accruing to the litigation route, as the data suggest is the case, we need to look at ways of addressing that. I note that the new action plan for insurance reform mentions considering the issue of legal costs at the Injuries Resolution Board, but no more detail than that is provided. We will have to watch that space to see what comes of those considerations.

I absolutely agree with the point about reforms coming in to benefit insurers and those savings not being passed on to claimants. Equally true is that far too many cases are going to litigation, which, in many cases, is unnecessarily doubling the overall cost of settling claims. We have a perfectly good model that needs to be promoted more and used far more, while accepting that people, as they should, always reserve the right to legal advice and access to the courts.