Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I absolutely agree that the insurance situation is bad. It is not my Department's responsibility, but we should take a more active interest in it. I had a meeting with all the stakeholders in the road safety and roads areas earlier this week and we agreed that we would engage with Insurance Ireland as this requires further investigation. We will engage with Insurance Ireland at a senior level. I will meet its representatives and perhaps the Minister for Justice and Equality as well. It is inexplicable. We have not received proper explanations for why premia have gone up so much in such a short time. I do not wish to cop out of it from our Department and just hand it over to the companies. It is primarily their responsibility, as was clear from the recent debate in the Dáil. We would have liked to have had the lead part in that but it was the Department of Finance's responsibility. However, we will meet with the industry and challenge it on various areas because we are not happy with the situation.

On taxis, the low accessibility is a little staggering. We might look at that and see if we can increase it. It is at 5% and the target has been 30% or 35% for quite a long time. Deputy Munster will probably be quite interested in that. It is too slow. It is expensive for them, so it is difficult, but we should reach to a much higher standard than this.