Mr. Ciaran Breen:

Unfortunately, and nothing to do with the State Claims Agency, it was not until May 2013 that we were able to put forward our first offer. We were awaiting a schedule of special damages which we got and we put forward our first offer on that occasion. When that was not successful, on 20 May 2013 we actually issued an invitation to mediate. As Mr. John Corrigan stated in his opening remarks, it is a preference for us that we would go the route of mediation. In the particular case the family refused mediation and we decided we would go back to court because there is a facility to get the High Court judge to order mediation. We did that on 3 October 2013. The mediation failed. We made a substantial offer at the mediation and the mediation failed. The matter was then listed, as it would normally be, before the High Court in November. A very tricky issue then arose, and while the family might be aware of it, it is also a very technical legal argument, in relation to real rate of return concerning the cost of future care. In the particular case, the counsel for the plaintiff indicated to the court that he was seeking to bring economic argument before the court as to why that rate should be reduced. We decided that for good reasons, based on our own economic evidence, that we would be putting that matter at issue. The case ran for roughly 11 days until it was settled.