Mr. John Newham:

On the confidentiality issue and recurrent claimants, we are getting into the area of fraud and I will defer to my colleague on that point.

Dealing with the first question and working backwards, we looked at the aspect as to whether there is the setting of a percentage difference between what the award and what the final outcome is, and whether that can influence the process. I will, again, ask Mr. Maher to deal with that.

To explain, mediation will be voluntary process, and is not, as the Deputy mentioned, mandatory. We are proposing that it is voluntary as it has to be so.

PIAB needs to market itself because when one looks at the statistics and the level of awards being made by the courts even under the old system, which is the key thing, the claims did not end up much better. Certain professions ended up better but the claims themselves did not and often the claimants had to wait much longer, 4.2 years on average. Even under the old system, the PIAB process, on average, was much more effective in these terms. That is why under the legislation there are provisions around PIAB conducting research and getting out there more.

The Personal Injuries Guidelines are the step change because the level of discretion under the old system has been narrowed under these guidelines and it is a great deal tighter. I would certainly expect and I cannot see how there would be any difference under the Personal Injuries Guidelines between PIAB assessments, an outcome of mediation, and if a case went to full litigation. I will leave the other questions for Mr. Maher to answer.