Ms Eileen Creedon:

If we are pursuing a company and it goes into liquidation we cannot pursue it any further. If we are pursuing a lay litigant and it becomes clear they are of very poor means, are unemployed or in ill health we might have to make a commercial decision as to whether we would be throwing good money after bad in pursuing it. We are careful to make such a decision, though, because it is taxpayers' money and we are obliged to pursue it as far as we can. We keep these matters under review so that if we feel somebody may be in a position to pay us at some point in the future we will put it on a review list and look at it again to see if their circumstances have improved so that we can recover the costs.