This is a very important Bill which seeks to abolish juries in High Court civil liability actions. I have a very keen concern because in the Joint Committee on Small Businesses for six months we studied the insurance problems of the small business community. The current insurance industry in Ireland is in crisis. It is not alarmist to say that this position cannot go unchecked because it will spell further unemployment and business closures if something is not done. I will give some examples of the level of the problem we are talking about. The relevance of talking about insurance when dealing with a Courts Bill is that, on average, of every insurance claim paid 15 per cent to 20 per cent is made up of legal costs: on average, of all claims paid that percentage is represented in legal costs. Therefore, any measure that would reduce legal costs will have the direct effect of reducing awards and, by savings, reducing premiums.
In a submission to the Joint Committee on Small Businesses the FUE stated that between 1982 and 1984, on average there was a 286 per cent increase in insurance premiums. Inflation during that period was a little under 24 per cent, so we had insurance premiums rising at more than ten times the rate of inflation. However, there are some far worse examples than averages. If we take the professions — architects, solicitors, doctors and so on — who take out professional indemnity insurance, the premiums have rocketed, resulting in increases in their fees. In the ordinary retail trade, premium increases have gone up by up to 1,000 per cent, partly because of the crime problem in certain areas.
All insurance has gone out of control, but even worse than having a crisis is the official complacency about the existence of that crisis. When the committee met the Departments of Industry and Commerce and Justice, both at Secretary level, they said there was not a particular problem, that premiums had gone up but there was no crisis. They said that total premium income had gone from £52.7 million in 1980 to £64.5 million in 1981, to £67.1 million in 1982, £70.7 million in 1983 and approximately £88 million in 1984, increases of 26 per cent, 22 per cent, 23 per cent, 25 per cent and 24 per cent, respectively, year on year.
The worrying thing is that though there were increases of 3.9 per cent during 1981 and 1982 and 5.6 per cent in the following year, they pointed out that that was not a crisis. I agree that increases of that magnitude are not a crisis, but those figures do not relate the whole position. They only take into account the total premium receipts of all insurance companies, who are obliged to make annual returns to the Department of Industry and Commerce. The Department publish a Blue Book each year giving the total premium income figures. That does not take account of the volume of business covered, the number of employees or the firms who are told they cannot get any more cover because they are not thought to be good risks. It does not take into account the numbers of people who have been told that their cover would be reduced or restricted. It does not take into account the people who transfer from one insurance company to another, the refusals to insure or where people decide they cannot afford to take out insurance and who, therefore, cover their own risks. Neither does it take into account the number of multinational companies who have switched their insurance abroad.
There is an increasing number of people each year who do not take out Irish insurance for the reasons I have mentioned. Because fewer people and businesses are insured, the increases in total premium income figures change dramatically and for the few who are insured the figures have gone up very considerably. The base of the insured community has shrunk and for those left the increases have been much more than shown in the Blue Book. This is leading to the problem of gross, official complacency. I know of a recent AnCO course where they tried to start a business where people could fell trees. However, they could not get started because they could not get public and employers' liability insurance. This crisis is of epidemic proportions and something has to be done.
I welcome the legislation as a first step but unfortunately, it is too little, too late. It will not have the effect of reducing insurance premiums in the short term. The best effect that can be obtained will be to hold insurance premiums at their current level for the next three years and after that there may be a reduction. There is no way anyone can suggest that by bringing forward this legislation one is solving the insurance problems that exist. I acknowledge it is a first step but we are not getting to the root causes of the problem. Therefore, I should like to examine the further steps that can be taken, as previous speakers have done.
We received a submission from the IDA to say that insurance premiums in one year can equal the total value of IDA aid to an industrialist. We also received submissions from Dublin Corporation suggesting that in certain areas insurance was not available. They said where they had renovated premises in an urban renewal programme and had leased the premises they could not get insurance. One need only look at the State rescue of the PMPA in 1983 and the further State rescue of the ICI in 1985. Not only does this have the effect of being a disincentive to recruiting more people in terms of employers' liability but it also adds to the cost of a business. The higher the premiums the greater the costs. It also hits competitiveness very severely. Employers' liability insurance can account for up to 10 per cent of payroll costs. In addition, it has a severe and adverse effect on employees.
I nearly got my handkerchief out this morning when I received a submission from the Chairman of the General Council of the Bar of Ireland, professional practitioners who have done very well out of our legal system. When I hear them talk about the ordinary man and administration of justice I ask them a simple question: do they realise that because of the archaic, inefficient and outdated nature of our court system and because of the legal fees they charge due to that cumbersome system, the result has been that many people are now not able to afford insurance and employees are going to work without any cover? If they break their neck or their leg they have no cover simply because they could not afford to pay the insurance or it was unavailable. Even worse, people are going to work without public liability cover and if they have an accident they must suffer the consequences. All they get is a measly occupational injuries benefit from the Department of Social Welfare and they have no redress because the cases do not come under the malicious injuries code. In a genuine accident at work, perhaps a person falls off a ladder, he has no cover. When the Bar Council talk about justice they must take into account justice for all employees. We must have a system of insurance that is affordable, available and reasonable so that every worker can be covered in the event of an accident.
I know that many people here are members of the Incorporated Law Society or the Bar Council and they make special pleading cases for the retention of the jury system. Therefore, it is necessary to spell out the kind of problems existing in the real world. Let us take the example of a hedge cutter in County Wexford who wishes to get a job with Wexford County Council. He must have compulsory insurance and in many cases a small firm cannot afford the cost. There are many small construction firms who are trying to get contracts under the public capital programme but if they do not have cover they will not get the contracts. There is also the farcical situation with regard to young people who are trying to obtain motor insurance but who cannot afford it because of the exorbitant cost, with the huge loading rate for people under 25 years and for first time insurers. All of these problems are directly related to the cost of our legal system because in every insurance claim paid out, on average 15 or 20 per cent is paid in respect of legal costs. Therefore, if we are to talk about cheaper car insurance and cheaper employers' and public liability insurance, we must talk about getting the claims and settlement system operating on a more modern management principle and on a more efficient and cheaper basis.
When considering the difficulties in the insurance sector, many people take the simple and often naive option of blaming the insurance companies. I hold no brief for the insurance industry. They have reacted in a narrow, insensitive way to the current crisis; but in the interests of accuracy and fairness it must be said they are not solely to blame for the huge increase in premiums. I will give the House two figures to illustrate what I mean.
In 1979 the net underwriting losses of the Irish insurance companies was £9 million; in 1983 that figure increased to £97 million — in other words, in four and a half years the losses had increased by 11 times. In 1982 and 1983 five of the ten Irish-based insurance companies incurred substantial losses. Because of the legislation that controlled the insurance industry between 1936 and 1976 there was an environment of protectionism. With our membership of the EC in 1976 the type of insurance which ensued within the insurance sector meant they were all going for growth in market share with the result that they did not keep a prudent eye on their portfolios and therefore incurred huge losses but did not look at the kind of risks they were taking. There is an element of culpability on the insurance industry, but nothing to the culpability of the legal profession and our courts structure in relation to the explosion in premiums. If we look at the figures I have just given we will realise that it was not unreasonable for the insurance companies to pass on these losses.
I wish to turn now to the legal system and to analyse in some detail how we can go further than this legislation and ensure that we have affordable insurance. As the Minister said, the primary purpose of this Bill is to reduce insurance costs. As I said, on average 15 per cent to 20 per cent of claims paid are taken up by legal costs. Article 34 of the Constitution lays down the fundamental principles of our court structure: the judges are appointed by the President on the advice of the Government and the courts were set up pursuant to the Justice and Courts Officers Acts, 1924 and 1953.
We are dealing with civil liability actions in the High Court under this legislation. Under the present structure the District Court has a limit of hearing civil liability cases of £2,500; the Circuit Court may decide claims up to £15,000, unless all parties to the action consent, in which event the amount is unlimited; the High Court has unlimited jurisdiction and the Supreme Court has an appellate function in personal injuries accident cases but deals only with points of law. We are dealing with a system which has not changed between 1924 and 1984.
The question must be asked: are the court structures which were set up 60 years ago applicable to our current needs? Emphatically, no. The first thing that needs to be done is to streamline the jurisdiction of the courts. I would like to see a major increase in the limit for the hearing of certain cases. I would also like the District Court limit to be increased to at least £5,000 and the Circuit Court limit to at least £30,000. This would expedite hearings at the lower level and reduce the delays and the costs associated with High Court hearings.
If we want to change the court system we have to look at the structures. First, the Department of Justice have overall responsibility for the administration of the courts. However, a number of aspects of the courts administration lie within the statutory competence of the courts and the judges. The number of the Judiciary is controlled by the law. According to the book of public expenditure for 1985, there are six Supreme Court judges, 15 High Court judges, 15 Circuit Court judges and 45 District Court judges. We must ask ourselves if that is the right number. Is that number adequate to deal with our needs? What is the cost-benefit analysis of more or fewer judges? The total cost of running the courts in 1985, and this includes the criminal and civil jurisdiction, was £12.9 million, including £1.2 million on building works and £400,000 administration costs by the Department. To some extent, this expenditure is defrayed by revenue from the general court scale of fees for which the Minister is responsible. These fees are charged as a contribution towards the running costs of the courts and are payable by and on behalf of litigants on the lodgments of documents with the court. The amount collected in 1985, for example was £5.7 million.
My view is that because we are dealing with the High Court, an additional two High Court judges should be appointed, bringing the total to 17. One of the problems in this court is the long delay in hearing cases. Since the Minister is responsible for the scale of fees, and the amount collected was approximately half of the total cost of running the courts, it is possible to compensate the Exchequer by increasing the scale of court fees marginally. This would mean that two extra judges could be appointed without any cost to the Exchequer.
The changing of rules in relation to the way trials are heard, which is one of the biggest scandals in our legal system, is a matter for the legal rules committee. The terms of reference of the Committee on Court Practice and Procedures are to inquire into the operation of the courts, to consider whether the cost of litigation should be reduced, how it affects the public and how efficient it is both in civil and criminal cases. The Committee decide on the levels of jurisdiction and on all levels of practices and procedures. Basically, their role is fundamental to any change; but they are part of the system and very slow to change. We have the Superior Court Rules Committee, the Circuit Court Rules Committee and the District Court Rules Committee whose terms of reference are to make rules in conjunction with the Minister for Justice, relating to the general conduct, practice and procedure of those various courts.
I should like to see a very rapid change in this area, especially in relation to pre-trial procedures, because I believe there is great scope for savings in this area. Certain routine evidence, such as Garda statements and sketch plans, should be allowed on a pre-trial basis which would not delay the court hearing. I should like to see agreement where possible between the claimant and the defendant in relation to medical evidence and actuarial and engineering data being provided in the court case. This would mean that before the case comes to court, the agreed points are out of the way and the focus would be on the points where the parties agree to disagree.
For the average punter a day in the High Court is £1,000. If we are dealing with that level of expenditure for litigants we must look at every way of reducing the number of days on which cases are heard. Therefore, I would like to see the Superior Court Rules Committee in conjunction with the other courts' committees I have mentioned for the Circuit Court, the High Court and so on getting together to rearrange pre-trial procedures in such a way that there would be a full exchange between the legal representatives of both parties 21 days prior to the hearing so that all the technical, medical, engineering and actuarial data, maps, photographs, certain exhibits, submissions to be taken and so on can be dealt with and got out of the way expeditiously. I request the Minister urgently to take up this matter with these committees, because if they are not given some spur to do this we will go for another 60 years with no change. Our whole economic structure and way of doing business over that period has changed. It is like saying that the donkey and cart are a relic of our past but the court system is still with us, unfortunately.
Now we get down to the meat of it which is the jury system and legal representation. This is the kernel of this legislation which needs a great deal of thought. First, let me deal with the General Council of the Bar of Ireland data which I presume all Deputies received this morning and which suggest that juries should be retained for the following reasons. A Mr. Dermot Ryan, spokesman for the insurance companies, stated categorically that the abolition of juries will not reduce insurance premiums. That is a gross, total misrepresentation of the views of the Irish Insurance Federation to whom I have spoken and I know where they stand on this subject. I know where their clients, the insured community, stand on this. I do not know who this Dermot Ryan is, but this is a gross misrepresentation or unrepresentation of their views. They have been looking for this legislation for the last five years. They have been saying that we are the only country in Europe that retains jury sittings in civil liability cases in the High Court.
The second reason is that there is no evidence to suggest that individual judges in this country will be less generous in their assessment of compensation than would a jury. The Bar Council go on to say that there is no reason to suggest that judges would be any more consistent than juries. They say in their submission in relation to the administration of justice that if the English example were involved it would have the effect of reducing the amount of compensation recoverable by persons injured through no fault of their own to a very low level by comparison with what they could now reasonably expect under the jury system. On page 1 of their submission they say that there is no reason to believe that people are going to get less, and on the last page they say that it will be unfair to claimants because they are going to get less. Perhaps they could make up their minds on what they think will happen.
If we follow the English example we will see that, first of all, legal costs in Ireland are twice what they are in the UK and, secondly, in the UK the judges have reference to guidelines called the Kemp and Kemp guidelines which are basically a standard award system for an arm, say, £10,000, a leg £12,000, an eye £20,000 or whatever. These figures are off the top of my head but there is a set standard of reference. Therefore, it is not just judges in whatever mood they are in or any particular judge. I imagine that we would follow the English system whereby there would be not a statutory or mandatory thing but a standard reference book to which judges could refer and make awards accordingly, and of course that would create consistency. I fail to see the Bar Council's argument having any logic or common sense if they expect a dozen ordinary people, varying from farmers to social welfare recipients, factory workers or accountants, to have some idea of what would be an appropriate level of compensation. They have no clue.
The Bar Council say that among the practical effects of the abolition of the jury system is that it will remove from the public at large one of the very few opportunities they have to participate in the administration of justice. My experience is that people who get notice of a call for jury duty go to their local council or TD to get out of it, or they get doctors' letters. However they can they get out of it, because under no circumstances do they want to participate. I grant that I am generalising, but it would be representative to say that many people would lose no sleep over their loss of right to hear civil cases.
However, we are not necessarily dealing with the rights or wrongs of the case but with the necessity to assess damages. We are not dealing with a criminal case and whether the verdict is guilt or innocence. We are dealing with a technical matter of assessing awards on the basis of injury, loss of capacity and so on. Every other country in Europe has gone the road this legislation is going, and I fail to see why the Bar Council are using terms like "this legislation is a pig in a poke". That is unreasonable and unfair. I have met the Bar Council face to face and they are well aware of my views on this matter. With a Kemp and Kemp type of system such as the UK has we can eliminate their worst fears.
Now we come to the best line of all: "The availability of jury trial serves the useful social function of discouraging and even preventing litigation from becoming the exercise of an exclusively professional ritual engaged in by professional lawyers, judges and advocates." I suggest that the current courts structure, the system in this country, serves its practitioners better than it does the claimants and defendants when we look at the type and scale of fees they have. If they are so interested in involving the public, why do they not take off their gowns and wigs and wear ordinary clothes like the rest of us so that people would not feel afraid for their lives when they go into court? Why do they not come down to earth and get away themselves from the professional ritual?
Enough about their submission. I wish to turn to the most appalling restrictive practice that exists in this country, perpetuated by the members of the Bar Council, something that this Minister and this Government should deal with immediately if we are to get legal costs down. This legislation is a welcome change, but it is too little too late. We need a major radical approach to the reform of the legal system. I refer to the three counsel rule, as it is commonly known. This is unbelievable to the ordinary people when you try to explain it to them. Where in a High Court hearing you have a jury sitting the universal practice is that each side has a solicitor. That solicitor in turn gets counsel who is a barrister. The barristers operate a three counsel system which requires each side in a High Court action to be represented by two senior counsel and one junior counsel. Thus you have the three counsel rule. Therefore, for what could be a very straightforward hearing there are eight legal representatives in one case, four on either side.
I am glad to say, before I defame the legal profession any further, that the Incorporated Law Society in their submission to the Committee on Small Businesses admitted that was totally indefensible and should be done away with. Of course, as fair-minded people, we sought the views of the Bar Council on the reason for such an excessive level of legal representation. Their answer was unbelievable. They said that there is no rule of the Bar that any minimum, number of counsel should be briefed in any particular case other than the rule that senior counsel must not appear in court unless junior counsel is briefed on the case.
The court schedule is disorganised. A senior counsel can be ready to take a case but he or she does not know when the case will be heard because the timetable is not specific. Therefore, a spare senior counsel must be standing by, equally well briefed on the case, to settle it on the steps of the courthouse if the other senior counsel is tied up in another case. It is a ludicrous and expensive system. It is only because such a cosy restrictive practice operates that they get away with it and that is why the current court structure serves its own practitioners better than the litigants.
Therefore, I strongly believe that there is an unanswerable case for the Minister for Justice to call together the Superior Court Rules Committee and to tell them that something will have to be done very rapidly about the three counsel rule. One of the practical solutions would be to abolish last minute settlements on the steps of the courts because this is the cause of the problem. All cases should have to be settled within a given period, say 15 days before the scheduled hearing, or it would have to be heard, because at present there is an element of cat and mouse and bluff on both sides. There may be a case involving someone who has been in a car injury and who has suffered an eye injury. Perhaps the insurance company are offering £40,000 but the claimant wants £60,000 and is holding out for the full amount. I am also critical of insurance companies, who have tolerated the three counsel rule for so long. Unlike ordinary mortals who fight a single case in their lifetime, if at all, it is the bread and butter of insurance companies and they should have been a lot tougher in regard to this matter a long time ago.
Those are the changes I would like to see in the court system. The present system has been in operation, virtually unchanged for 60 years. There is no sign of modern management principles. It is time for a radical review, which should include increasing the jurisdiction of the District Court from £2,500 at present to £5,000 and the Circuit Court from £15,000 to £30,000. I should like to see the appointment of two extra High Court judges, from 15 to 17, a change in pre-trial procedures whereby all medical, technical, actuarial and engineering evidence, maps, photographs and exhibits could all be agreed before the hearing. That, coupled with the abolition of the three counsel rule, would ensure progress towards changing the system.
I should also like to refer to the crisis in the insurance sector and the availability and cost of insurance, which has reached enormous proportions and is leading to unemployment, closure of businesses and to people going to work without insurance cover, which is a very dangerous position for them. The answer is to take the settlement and claims system out of the hands of the courts. That may seem extremely radical; but, if you examine the international situation as I have and study the position in relation to OECD countries, you will find that Ireland is unique in its settlement and claim system. I wish to refer specifically to the international situation relating to employers' liability insurance. I will give some examples. Since 1910 Canada has had a workman's compensation system financed by employers and based on collective liability and, in order to avoid delay and to have quick settlements, it is exclusive of the courts' jurisdiction. West Germany has a compulsory no faults insurance scheme for work accidents which has its origin in the industrial accidents insurance law of 1884. Different autonomous funds have been set up which are administered by the Department of Labour and employers are obliged to have insurance cover.
In France all persons in paid employment are covered by the work accident injuries scheme. Its cost is met by the employers and settlements are made by a tribunal system. They have a right to an appellant court, which is not a court in our sense, but a tribunal system. In the Netherlands up to recently they did not allow civil actions for negligence in cases of this kind. In Sweden they have a voluntary, no faults agreement between management and unions whereby the equivalent of the ICTU and the FUE got around a table and worked out the problems of expensive insurance. They realised that 15 per cent to 20 per cent of the cost of such insurance went to solicitors and on court expenses. They agreed to set up a tribunal system with a right of appeal. The premiums vary for different risks and there is an expenditious way of dealing with cases. There are no wigs and gowns and the formalities of court proceedings. The system works perfectly simply and the same system applies in New Zealand.
I do not wish to delay the House unduly by giving it the benefit of my international knowledge in this matter but I would like to point out that basically Ireland is unique in the way it deals with this situation. In most countries there is a no fault system of insurance which is compulsory and accidents at work are settled by a tribunal. That has the advantage of being equitable to all employers, provides adjustable premiums for higher risk categories, widens the insurance pool and thus improves the current situation.
More people would be paying because it would be compulsory and the burden of insurance cover carried only by those firms who have cover at present would be slightly lighter.
What are we going to do here, because we are light years away from change? We have studied the situation in very great depth and one comes to the interesting conclusion that almost by accident here we stumbled across a solution through the Stardust tribunal settlements. We all recall the desperate tragedy of the Stardust where, obviously there would be very substantial claims for loss of life, injury and so on. We saw the total and utter frustration of the people concerned because of the administration of those claims. I would be of the view, a layman's opinion, that it would be many, many more years before those cases would be settled if the Stardust tribunal had not been introduced.
The Stardust tribunal is an extremely important precedent in relation to a claims settlement system in Ireland for the simple reason that the people who settled their claims through the Stardust tribunal waived their right to sue subsequently for damages. The basis for this tribunal system in other countries is that equally through their unions and as individuals, they agree the rules of this new tribunal system, and because they are party to making the rules they have confidence in the operations of the system. We could very quickly move to a situation where widows would not wait four and five years for compensation; where people could get the necessary expensive medical help to take care of their incapacity and, at the end of the day, we would not have the fat cats of the legal profession cleaning up. So, I firmly call on the Congress of Trade Unions and on the FUE who are equally concerned about this matter, to get together and discuss this matter and to put proposals to the Ministers for Labour and Justice. I know there is a great deal of sympathy within the Department of Labour for the suggestion that employers' liability insurance should be made compulsory but, if it is made compulsory in isolation and the settlements system is not changed, the third party fire and theft motor insurance problem will just be compounded. At the moment this is compulsory but there are still thousands of uninsured drivers and very heavy losses by that section of the insurance industry.
We have to make a root and branch change in the system of insurance here rather than just making insurance compulsory and compounding the problem. An essential change by the tribunal system would be that it would be on a no fault basis. That means that if a person is working as a painter and is on a ladder, falls off and breaks his ankle it does not matter if it was his fault or the employer's fault; what matters is that he has a damaged ankle, and is entitled to compensation. If it is made no fault the argument is taken out of it and the need for it to be administered by the courts is removed by virtue of the fact that it does not matter whether it was negligence or who was culpable that the fact is that there was injury, there was damage and that damage must be compensated for.
Therefore, we could very quickly get into a Stardust tribunal settlement system. I would strongly urge it because when I was researching this area for the Small Businesses Committee everybody said we should abolish juries, remove the 1 per cent tax levy on insurance and make various changes such as abolishing the three counsel rule and so on. Nobody had gone to the trouble of studying why they have affordable and reasonable insurance in Germany, France, New Zealand, Canada and Sweden. It is because they gave a little thought to the root causes of the problem. The real insurance problem here is that claims have gone out of control and our legal system is so blatantly a lottery. Under the jury system people are prepared to take a risk because of the great potential of the gravy train. People have become more litigation conscious. People who have minor accidents want to go to the High Court and the situation in relation to the level of claims has gone out of control. In my constituency, not a quarter of a mile from where I live, there are 74 people employed in a certain manufacturing industry and the employers' liability insurance premium is £120,000, to give a specific micro example — I gave the macro survey figures earlier. That is simply unsustainable. The insurance company are doing them a favour in giving them insurance at that level. It is all because the legal system is a lottery. Legal expenses represent up to 20 per cent of claims and awards paid and nobody does anything but talk about it. As I heard the Bishop of Ferns say today, we have a great Irish habit of thinking that if we talk about a problem we have done something about the problem whereas, in fact, we have done nothing about it.
I would strongly urge the Minister to examine the international experience in all OECD countries and to realise that we are almost unique in the way we go about our settlement system. I urge him to introduce a no fault compulsory tribunal awards settlement system whereby cases could be settled within six months on an agreed basis between unions and employers and to introduce the other legal changes I spoke about.
In my view, this legislation will, at the end of the day, reduce the level of awards and bring greater consistency in awards. I totally reject the Bar Council's argument that 11 or 12 lay people who have never heard a case before in their lives would know how much damage to give for the loss of an eye as opposed to judges who would have reference to the Kemp and Kemp system as they do in the UK. The system I suggest will bring about consistency of awards and will cut out special pleading to juries by senior counsel on bended knee, the jury having their handkerchiefs out for someone in a wheelchair and in need of compensation, and legal costs of £1,000 to £3,000 per day in the High Court. It will cut out all of that nonsense and provide something that is equitable. The House need not take my word that the situation is crazily inconsistent. One has only to look at the over 300 awards in civil liability jury cases that were subsequently appealed to the Supreme Court — a very expensive and time consuming process. The fact that there was appeal to the Supreme Court showed that there was no sense or reason in the awards made. A no fault system would speed up the litigation process but the appointment of two extra High Court judges will do more in this area. At the end of the day the argument from the Bar Council represents nothing more than special pleading by people who have done very well out of a very expensive legal system, the cost of which has been borne by the insured community, and they are at the end of their tether.
I welcome this legislation which I hope will bring some order out of the current chaos. I firmly believe that if the Government think or anybody thinks that this measure to abolish juries in High Court cases of civil liability actions will solve the insurance crisis, they are sadly mistaken. The best it can do is stop premium costs rising. What is needed is a major overhaul of our legal system. This should include the appointment of two extra judges, the raising of the limits in the District and Circuit Courts, the changing of pre-trial procedures, the dropping of the three counsel rule, the introduction of a time limit for the acceptance of settlements and, above all, an attempt to take settlement claims out of the hands of the courts altogether. Then we could have an efficient, expeditious, reasonably costed system in terms of administration whereby justice could be seen to be done and people would not be terrified going into court and could hope to get compensation quickly after their accidents.
When replying to this debate, I hope the Minister will give consideration not only to the points I have raised but to a detailed analysis done by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Small Businesses, which committee spent six months looking at this area and whose report is worthy of consideration.
