Michael McDowell (Dublin South East, Progressive Democrats)

This is a new innovation, but it is not unprecedented internationally, whereby the Minister can prescribe actuarial tables by regulations for the purpose of their being referred to by the courts when assessing damages in respect of future financial loss.

If one loses an income stream for the rest of one's life, at the moment in Ireland if it is a serious case an actuary comes to court and gives evidence by reference to actuarial tables as to what the appropriate multiplier for a capital sum should be. I am not in the slightest anti the actuarial profession whose members are skilled and wonderful people, but it is a waste of their time to have them hanging around courts to give fundamentally statistical advice by way of evidence when, as in certain other common law countries comparable to ours, it is possible to do so by a standard form table which can be varied from time to time to reflect realities. Somebody once asked "What is the definition of an extrovert actuary?" to which the reply was "An extrovert actuary is one who looks at your shoes when he is talking to you". I will stop there.