Sir, - Driving has been my occupation for 25 years. I now employ 45 people similarly engaged each day on the streets of our capital city. My personal experiences and observations, particularly during the past year, have compelled me to pen this letter.
If deep-seated fraud and injustice has become institutionalised in our judicial procedures; if it affects many thousands of people from all levels of society and is not remarked upon by the professions involved in and profiting from its continuance, it behoves the media, the legislature, the judiciary, and the insurance industry to act in unison to highlight and solve this enormous problem.
I refer to the widespread practice of solicitors and barristers facilitating personal injury litigation for so-called "soft-tissue injury" claims by motorists, many of whom are involved in the most minor of traffic accidents. The ease with which unscrupulous drivers and passengers can extract five-figure sums from insurance companies is a scandal. I have seen such cases where the litigant's vehicle was not even damaged!
The recipe for £10,000 tax free hand-out is simply:
1. A tap on the rear bumper from an inattentive driver.
2. A visit to casualty and a complaint of neck or back pain registered.
3. A written medical report to that effect.
4. A visit to a welcoming solicitor's office with details of this entirely subjective discomfort.
The dubious claim will be bought off before any court hearing due to the horrendous costs of litigation and the likelihood that a judge's largesse could result in a larger bonanza for the claimant. Many of these ridiculous claims should not even be permitted to enter the legal process and certainly not the Circuit Court circus which is gold-mine territory for barristers.
An independent body of sceptical medical professionals ought to be appointed by the insurance industry and given full legislative powers to examine and disallow blatantly trivial personal injury complaints by "compo-conscious" motorists from entering the Circuit Court. Alternatively, the judiciary must throw these sham cases out of court, which are fattening their fellow barristers at the expense of the motoring public. Will this charade, which encourages so many amoral citizens to pursue "easy money" at their fellow motorists expense, ever end? - Yours, etc., John Mc Dermott,
Ashtown, Castleknock, Dublin 15.