Mr. Justin Moran:

Insurance costs are a particularly important issue in rural areas. Age Action runs an information line through which it is contacted on a variety of issues, including benefits and entitlements. We get more calls from older drivers concerned about car insurance premiums from outside the major urban centres than from inside. A constant concern for me is that people in their late sixties or early seventies will decide to take the chance and drive without car insurance to the village because it is only eight or nine miles and the route is not a busy one. That is a road we do not want to go down.

I echo the point made about transparency. Many of our members are often bewildered by the increase in their premiums. Mr. Griffin made a point earlier about the age of a car not affecting a person's driving skill. Many of the people who contact us are people whose insurance premiums increase significantly when they move from the 49 to 50 years or 64 to 65 years age brackets, despite the fact that they are the same driver they were the day before in terms of experience or inexperience, because premiums are based on age. There are some very unhappy birthdays for people in the context of increased car insurance premiums which are way beyond what they can afford.