Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

I have recently discussed this with the Law Society. The reason is to make it very clear what the pleadings were in a case and, in the next section, relating to the verifying affidavit. It is for the purpose of policing the false claims provision. When a plaintiff brings a claim against a defendant, there will be an official record of what he or she claimed and an official repository of the affidavit, so that people cannot claw it back or settle the case and get their files back from the other side. It is a policing mechanism to ensure that somewhere there will always be a full record of what someone has claimed in a personal injury action. There will be evidence of the making of the verifying affidavit so that people afterwards are in no doubt about where something is and whether it is in the office of someone's solicitor. We do not want a situation where the defendant will effectively be under some form of obligation to keep documents which might later be of use in policing the matter. We want a centrally stored set of proceedings and a verifying affidavit so that if there is any doubt afterwards concerning what the pleadings were and what the affidavit said, it is there rather than lost in some office.