Fourteen per cent of claimant rejections of Personal Injuries Assessment Board (PIAB) awards can be attributed to just six solicitors' firms, the Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business heard yesterday.

The PIAB, established by the Government to handle road accident and work injury claims where liability is not contested, has made 5,000 awards so far this year and has an acceptance rate of 61 per cent.

"The PIAB still has powerful opponents among those who are unwilling or perhaps incapable of embracing the new reality," PIAB chairwoman Dorothea Dowling told the committee.

"There is no evidence of all those injured clients getting more money subsequently but, of course, it will be three or four years before they know whether they are better or worse off by proceeding to court."

In many cases, Ms Dowling said the case had been settled for the same figure subsequent to rejection.

Before a High Court challenge last year that now debars the PIAB from telling people they have the option of not using a solicitor, which is now under appeal in the Supreme Court, only half of claimants were filing through solicitors, she said. But that number is now 90 per cent despite nine out of 10 claims being non-dispute and involving no legal issues.

The PIAB is delivering the same awards, at lower cost and with faster resolution - seven months compared to the average litigation of 36 months - said its chief executive, Patricia Byron. Litigation added 46 per cent to processing costs, she said.

Ms Dowling said some solicitors were charging €399 and upwards to handle claim forms for clients, whereas the PIAB fee was a refundable €50.

Despite the passing of the Civil Liability and Courts Act in 2004, which allows for false and exaggerated claims to be dismissed and those making them to be prosecuted, Ms Dowling told the committee that such claims were acting as a barrier to new entrants to the insurance market.

"I would not be a defender of the insurance industry but I must acknowledge their frustration that the new fines and other deterrents to overstated claims have not being applied by the courts to the extent that relevant cases have yet come to trial."

While there has been a 45 per cent drop in motor insurance costs, Irish policyholders still pay one of the highest levels of insurance costs in the EU, she said.

"There are still further substantial savings at stake, perhaps as much as 50 per cent in my personal view."