Mr. Aidan McLoughlin:

The Minister for Finance made the suggestion that the industry might pay it. A certain segment of the industry appears to have had discussions with the Minister but it is important to say that there is a lot of confusion about the industry and certain bodies within it would have been very upset about that, including our own association, which is not in favour of it. Without naming individual companies in the insurance industry, if one looks at the largest ones, they are effectively in groups that have been sustained by State finance because they were broke so there are no large profits there. If one looks at the returns published by the regulator in respect of insurance companies on their premium income, one can see that they fell 60% between 2007 and 2012. If any industry or business is down 60%, it cannot be making the same profits so whatever theory there was about the potential to pay the levy, it will not occur at a time of financial crisis because that is being felt by all the participants in it.

Our members would be as strong as anybody in arguing for value for money. That is what they do all day, every day. The fact that charges are quite competitive in Ireland is to the credit of those members. In terms of how one can get better value for money, in our view, it is about clarity. It relates to people being able to see exactly what it is. We think a total expense ratio, which would be the equivalent of the APR on loans and is a number that allows one to capture what are one's total costs, would allow people to see exactly what they are paying and would help drive that further. Basic competition will help after that.