The Law Society has conceded defeat in its efforts to persuade the Government to change its plans to establish the Personal Injuries Assessment Board.
The society's director general, Mr Ken Murphy, said it had no plans to mount a legal challenge against the legislation, which is expected to pass all stages of the Oireachtas next week.
"I think you would want to be living on another planet not to believe that it's going through," he said.
However, Mr Murphy said the society had been informed by the Human Rights Commission that it was investigating whether the bar on legal representation for claimants to the board was an infringement of their human rights.
He was speaking after the disclosure to The Irish Times of a letter from the society to all solicitors in which it said the Tánaiste, Ms Harney, would not be making amendments to the legislation.
Signed by the society's president, Mr Gerard Griffin, the letter, dated December 5th, acknowledged the society had mounted an intensive lobbying campaign against the legislation.
While stating that the board would be formally established soon, the letter said the campaign was "effective" because it had established the society's claim - that the legislation was imbalanced and unfair - as a primary focus of debate in the Oireachtas.
Mr Griffin advised solicitors that all employers' liability compensation cases would be subject to mandatory referral to the board once the legislation was enacted. All such cases would be referred regardless of when an accident occurred, he said.
Thus solicitors must ensure that they issued court proceedings before the board was formally established. "Solicitors who have already given undertakings, where proceedings have not yet been issued, should be particularly conscious of this," he said.
"If you have been instructed in relation to any relevant compensation claim, particularly in circumstances where you have given an undertaking, you must ensure that you have proceedings issued before the commencement of the Act."
Mr Murphy said it was not the case that the society was going against the spirit of a proposal which was designed to minimise the cost of claims. The society was advising solicitors to meet undertakings they had already made to issue court proceedings.
