Jim O'Callaghan (Dublin Bay South, Fianna Fail)
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I thank the witnesses for attending the meeting. I very much enjoyed their presentations. We had an opportunity to debate this in the Dáil on Second Stage and on that occasion Fianna Fáil indicated it would support the Bill. It is worthwhile legislation. From my point of view and knowledge of the courts, it is refreshing to have a discussion about facilitating access to the courts. On many occasions when we discuss legislation it is about restricting access through reducing limitation periods or restricting people's access to the courts by sending them to some statutory body. It is important that people recognise that access to the courts is a good thing. People must be facilitated in gaining access to the courts. There is a big problem in this country in terms of certain people feeling excluded from the system because of its expense. We must take steps to ensure that this does not happen.

The core advantage of this legislation, and I will be interested to hear Mr. Coleman's comments on this, is that multi-party actions will have the effect of reducing costs in the long run, not just the legal costs of the plaintiff but also the legal costs of the defendant being sued. Consider, for example, some of the major actions where the State has been wrong, whether it was the infection of women with contaminated blood products or the Army deafness cases. The State spent a fortune defending those claims. Does Mr. Coleman think that the cost to the State even of the legal fees would have been reduced had there been a multi-party action scenario for those situations?