Mr. Neil McDonnell:

The Freight Transport Association Ireland, FTAI, is grateful to the Chairman and members of the joint committee for the opportunity to speak to them about insurance costs. While we understand the substantive issue before the committee is private motor insurance, obviously we represent people who deal in large books of commercial vehicle motor insurance, public liability insurance, carrier insurance and property insurance. All have risen so substantially in the past two years that they represent a material threat to the viability of many distribution and passenger businesses. We have responsible companies and members such as Elsatrans Limited, which is represented here behind me, that on their own initiative and with our assistance have taken aggressive risk mitigation measures to lower the insured risks of their transport operations. Despite this, however, they have also been penalised because the insurance market in general is hardening. We believe that it is time to stop the national compensation culture that drives this excessive insurance cost and that it is absolutely necessary to address the ridiculous compensation payouts on the basis that they are victimless; they are not. While they impose a real excessive cost on employers, householders, businesses and motorists, it is possible to tackle excessive cost. For instance, we see no reason for whiplash injuries in Ireland, as many speakers have stated today, to result in the payment of multiples of the damages payable in the United Kingdom or on the Continent. We see no reason for serial claimants and fraudsters to be able to enjoy the freedom to falsify or exaggerate claims without the threat of prosecution for a codified offence of perjury, which we lack. There is no reason that insurers should not pay for rehabilitation of plaintiffs rather than paying them general damages and genuine claimants have nothing whatsoever to fear from this. Moreover, there is no reason why we should continue to accept a system that functions effectively as a social welfare system for unscrupulous lawyers and litigants.

The joint committee by now has heard from many players on how and why insurance costs have escalated so much in recent years. As we have stated, the escalation is not inevitable and our roadmap to lower insurance costs, which we provided to the joint committee, lists 52 recommendations on how we think it would be possible to so do. We have made recommendations for operators of transport, insurers, legislators, the legal profession and the Courts Service, as well as for the enforcement authorities. In addition, of a parochial interest to the transport industry is the need to provide for the insurance of young trainee and apprentice drivers, which is a particular issue at present. More than half of these 52 recommendations are in members' gift, as legislators, to deliver. We ask the joint committee not simply to take these legislative measures but to exercise leadership in calling out the compensation culture for what it is and stamping it out.