Yesterday's broadside from IBEC against solicitors who have rushed to get their cases into court before the use of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board becomes mandatory is only the latest salvo in an ongoing row that is likely to continue.
From June 1st all cases where those injured at work seek compensation must go first to PIAB. Only if liability is contested will they be released to go to the courts. They will also end up in the courts if either party does not accept the assessment of the compensation.
The attitude of the Law Society towards PIAB has hardened in the two years since it was first proposed. In October 2002 the society's director general, Mr Ken Murphy, said the profession would welcome it if it was fair to plaintiffs and if a number of conditions were met. These included ensuring that its composition was free of bias and not weighted towards the insurance companies, that there was no reduction in the level of compensation paid, and that claimants had the right to legal representation and to be heard directly.
PIAB has insisted there will be no reduction in the level of compensation paid. Its composition includes, as well as representatives of the insurance industry and IBEC, Mr Joe O'Toole of ICTU, who can be expected to speak up for claimants, especially if they are vulnerable. It has insisted, however, that it will be a "lawyer-free zone", pointing to the huge additional costs incurred when litigation is involved.
The Law Society has encouraged its members to lodge as many cases as possible in court before the June 1st deadline, in a move that can only be interpreted as intended to remove them from PIAB's remit. It continues to criticise the basis on which PIAB has been set up, claiming that it is driven by the needs of the insurance industry and employers, rather than those of claimants.
Unfortunately for their arguments, in this row lawyers are not very convincing as the representatives of the vulnerable claimant. They cannot escape the fact that they stand to lose most from the successful operation of PIAB. Most observers therefore view their complaints with scepticism.
Yet if any of their predictions come true, and claimants turn out to be disadvantaged by the process of revealing their case to insurers in PIAB, and subsequently go to court anyway, lawyers' organisations will be able to say "I told you so". For its part, once it becomes operational, PIAB will only enjoy public confidence if it ensures that there is no perception or suspicion of bias in its modus operandi.