A claim by the Irish Business and Employers' Confederation that 20 per cent of all liability claims were spurious was vigorously contested yesterday by the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the Law Society.

Mr Ken Murphy, director general of the Law Society of Ireland, said the 20 per cent figure was no more than a "guesstimate" based on a report on local authorities. He said it was completely wrong and spurious, and that the real figure was around 1 or 2 per cent. He said the report from which the figure was derived said that, in some local authorities, fraudulent claims "could be" as high as 20 per cent, but that there was no proven figure.

The issue arose at an IBEC conference on personal injury claims. ICTU safe sites projects officer Mr Dessie Robinson said the 20 per cent figure was inaccurate, and he rejected IBEC claims that employees were often overcompensated for injuries they received in work. He said: "Most of the time employees receive the appropriate money for their injuries and a lot of the time they do not get enough."

He added that the vast majority of employees did not go out to work to claim compensation from their employers.

Mr Tony Briscoe, assistant director of IBEC, had told the IBEC conference that the Republic was going through a litigious phase, with the number of claims spiralling. He said the phenomenon would affect the economy and might make Ireland less attractive for foreign investment. An IBEC report published last May showed that, although the Republic had the lowest accident rate in Europe, Irish workers were twice as likely as their British counterparts to claim compensation.

Mr Murphy said Ireland's record on accidents was nothing to be proud of and that there could not be claims about accidents if there were no accidents.

He said that between 1996 and 1998 the number of workplace accidents increased by 36 per cent, even though the number of people at work increased by only 20 per cent.

Mr Peter Murphy, an IBEC solicitor, told the conference that the next generation of claims would be stress related, including posttraumatic stress disorder.

He said that lower staffing levels because of labour shortages along with productivity pressures, and the introduction of new technology, which is often accompanied by staff cuts, was resulting in increased stress on workers.