The new Personal Injuries Assessment Board, which is taking over the handling of all personal injury cases, has denied responsibility for the sudden flood of last-minute claims that forced the High Court processing office to close.
Last night, a spokesman told The Irish Times: "The questions over how the rush came about should be answered by the solicitors who were filing them."
The new board, which took over all motor and public liability cases from Thursday, has been set up to eradicate or cut court costs by eliminating lawyers.
The rush on Wednesday saw extensive queues in the High Court with waiting times of more than 2½ hours. The modern office was closed on Thursday and yesterday to allow staff to process the backlog. Staff have been called in to work throughout the weekend to clear the unexpected workload.
A Courts Service spokesman said last night: "The central office of the High Court had received a volume of new personal injury summonses greatly in excess of what normally would be expected. We have seen over 5,000 cases in the last five days, roughly the same number as we saw in the first seven months of last year."
The PIAB came into operation at the end of May, and according to the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, its role is "to eliminate expensive litigation costs and deliver compensation to claimants more quickly and cheaply in the past". It has emerged that the central office accepted urgent cases yesterday.