The news comes as it emerged that a Dublinbased solicitor is set to take over 120 cases of alleged "negligent misselling" of endowment mortgages by certain Irish financial institutions to the Irish courts this year.

The CAI wrote to Irish political leaders last week calling for the introduction of class action-style lawsuits to be introduced into the legal system, its chairman Michael Kilcoyne told the Sunday Tribune.

"Where you have a large number of people with the one complaint it makes sense to do this. Consumers have suffered in the past because they don't have the legal ability to act together. The current system just makes extra work and earnings for lawyers, " he said.

Currently the European Commission is looking at ways for consumers to form groups and lodge court cases against companies they believe have mistreated them. The Irish Law Reform Commission are also currently examining ways actions by large groups of people can fit into the Irish system.

"We have just written to all party leaders asking them directly about this. If you just look at the time it would take to handle more than one hundred individual complaints, it does not make sense anymore. We will be lobbying for this before the election, " he said.

The CAI believe that the alleged "negligent misselling" cases are an example of where to use such a system. The allegations relate to endowment mortgages sold during the 1980s that left consumers with significant shortfalls when they matured in recent years.

Approximately 100 of the claims are being brought against Bank of Ireland and First Active, which previously traded as First National. The rest are spread across a range of institutions and brokers according to the solicitor involved. Both First Active and Bank of Ireland said they would not be "offering any comment on the matter as it is before the courts".

Dublin-based solicitor Brian Fox is making the case on behalf of his clients and he says the average amount of compensation he will be seeking is between 20,000- 30,000 with the highest being 38,000.

"With those amounts most of them will go before the circuit court. We would expect hearings to start after the summer or before the end of the year at the latest. We are just preparing our expert witnesses, " said Fox.

For endowment mortgages, homeowners only repay the interest owing on the loan and then pay monthly premiums to an insurance company in the expectation that the policy will generate a lump sum that will clear the mortgage and leave a surplus.

Many complaints surrounding the misselling of endowment mortgages have been raised with the financial regulator. They previously reported that Irish endowment holders faced an 89m shortfall on policies that had not reached maturity. They are only able to investigate incidents that occurred six years prior to the date of complaint.

"The regulator has been a bit toothless in dealing with this, " according to Fox. "In England the laws were changed so that people who lost money on endowments could be compensated. That never happened in Ireland unfortunately, ' he told the Sunday Tribune.