Martin Mansergh (Fianna Fail)

I think the lack of grounding in economics is showing in this amendment.

I have great respect for the jury system in determining whether people are innocent or guilty but in regard to the awarding of damages, jury judgments have, to say the least, been erratic. I come from the point of view that in a well-ordered society people have least possible recourse to the courts and that they not be encouraged by the system to have a punt on getting a large amount of damages from litigation.

A jury is normally empanelled for one case and will probably have had very little experience of other cases as opposed to a judge who sits through many cases and, therefore, more than likely has a better idea of the proportion involved. Damages are often inflated by the sheer per diem expense of my learned friends. Sometimes one gets an entirely misleading impression of how much a person gets because once one deducts from the award the fees of solicitors and barristers, the figure may be much more modest than it appears at first sight. The least possible recourse to the courts and encouragement of negotiation, settlement and reasonable behaviour by newspapers all point to the Minister's position rather than that of Senator Norris.