Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

The work of the PIAB has directly challenged the mindset of the compensation culture. The independent assessment of personal injury cases carried out by the board is provided without the need for the majority of current litigation costs, such as solicitors', barristers' and experts' fees, associated with such claims. These significant costs contributed to the high cost of insurance in Ireland for both consumers and the business community.

The compensation awarded by the PIAB is not affected by the legal costs and experts' fees that add more than 46% on average to the cost of a claim. The board has also reduced the amount of time it takes to finalise a compensation claim. While it can take approximately three years to settle a claim under the court system, it generally takes nine months to settle a personal injury claim via the PIAB.

The PIAB has recently announced that it has delivered total personal injury awards in excess of €100 million to date. Having reached full flow activity this year, it expects to deliver compensation payments in excess of €100 million annually from 2008. Critically, it has brought consistency to the treatment of personal injury cases. We all know of cases where people were encouraged to take an action because of the outcome of a court case brought by another person in similar circumstances. The consistent and even-handed evaluation of claims by the PIAB has ended the incentive for claimants to bring suspect claims in the hope of securing a perhaps undeserved bonanza in court.

The work of the PIAB has not only benefited the victim of the personal injury but also the person or organisation alleged to be responsible. According to the chief executive of the board, there is good news also for respondents — those paying for accidents — as the costs of processing claims through the PIAB continued to reduce and are currently up to 70% cheaper than litigation. Based on trends to date and the achievement of full volume activity this year, the PIAB is targeting annual processing cost savings of €40 million relative to litigation from 2008.

I have listened carefully to the debate on this legislation. The fundamental point is that the Bill does not remove a person's right to reject a PIAB recommendation and take a personal injury case to court. Equally, if a claimant's legal representative feels strongly enough that the case should be taken to court, that representative has the option to take the financial risk. The bottom line is that after a decision is issued by the PIAB, the claimant will have to make a judgment call as to whether he or she wishes to take the matter to court. Claimants will in general make that judgment call based on the advice of their legal representative who is perfectly free to offer to take the case on a "no win no fee" basis.

There may be proposals from the other side of the House that the court should be allowed a degree of discretion on the issue of costs in cases where it upholds a PIAB assessment and grants somebody an amount no greater than that of the PIAB in its decision. However, we have seen in other situations, particularly in criminal law matters, where the Judiciary has been given a degree of latitude in regard to mandatory sentences, with the outcome being that the exception becomes the norm and the flexibility granted to the Judiciary is extended so far that the rule becomes meaningless.

The result of adopting this Bill will be to strengthen the role of the PIAB and make people think more carefully and perhaps more sensibly before embarking on a costly and lengthy legal process where the outcome is uncertain. I commend everyone involved in the PIAB for the outstanding work they have done thus far and wish them every success.

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