Mr. Gary Dunne:

Yes. We have no evidence to say whether it is right or wrong. Part of our submission today is to say that there needs to be greater evidence-based policy-making. Right now, we cannot say the correct number is 70%. What we say is that 70% is the number reported by the Central Statistics Office. We agree with that because the CSO has reported it.

I agree that the base is important. It did look like insurers were losing money and therefore the costs needed to come up. It is a complex issue. There are more people on the roads and therefore there will be more claims. It is as simple as that. That is what we have seen in all of the statistics to which we have had access, which is the same public information that is available to anybody else. It does look like there is a material increase, in particular in injury claims, which is the main factor in the cost of a premium. Injury claims have gone up quite materially from 2012 to 2015. There are more claims coming through, but ultimately it comes back to the original point that we do need a good robust analysis of the issue in a transparent fashion which will highlight not only how much money is being made but, it is hoped, it will also allow us to find the factors behind that, which will then allow policy-makers to form policy decisions.