Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We know this from statistics but when Professor Honohan referred to this cohort of non-life insurance companies, he said that several Irish general insurance companies had eroded their capital base. Can we accept that this was a factual point in 2015? He was talking about previous years. Part of the letter is redacted, which I presume is composed of figures that I am not allowed to see. Professor Honohan went to say that the Minister would have noticed as well that these companies had put at their helm new CEOs to effect this return to profitability. Is that not the point here? The point is that these companies were behaving imprudently, saw a massive reduction in their investment income, appointed new CEOs and are now ramping up profitability because they have an issue with their own capital base and because Solvency II kicked in at the start of this year. The other issues, such whiplash, extra claims and legal fees are important and we need to deal with them but it does not actually deal with the substance of the big issue, which is that the model at that point in time was not fit for purpose.