Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

To corroborate what the Chairman is saying, the Injuries Board has stated that there is no public information available in respect of overall numbers and costs of claims for personal injuries as the only figures that have been made public do not contain any information on the numbers or cost of directly settled cases. It stated that without access to this information, a full picture of the impact of personal injury claims on insurance premiums is difficult to establish. The witnesses can tell us that the commission is looking at the notified intention to increase pricing but that is still only one element of it. After this submission, we still will not know whether there is a legislative basis that can be provided or whether a case can be made for legislating for perfect knowledge within the industry aside from whether or not one is a member that is locked in or out of Insurance Ireland or whether one is a broker, an underwriter, a small indigenous insurance house or a large international insurance house. It remains the case that if there is a proprietorial element to that data, there could be all kinds of constitutional provisions around that in respect of who owns the data, who minds it and how one interprets it. We can have all sorts of assessments and can make a rough adjudication on what is in the book of quantum. We have already heard that the book of quantum needs to be updated. Ms Dorothea Dowling told us that one can go from €400,000 maxima, if I am not mistaken - she mentioned an injury to a quadriplegic level - to a minor injury like a soft tissue injury, add a percentage and extrapolate an award from that.

Perhaps we have to wait and see what Insurance Ireland tells us but I am trying to ascertain here is whether or not we can provide a legislative base to compel the sector to anonymise the data and give it up. There is separation of powers but that would at least provide guidance for the Judiciary, where something is not settled through the Injuries Board, to allow it to quantify the extent of the damages so that there is no back-loading or front-loading on the cost of premiums. No matter what way one parses this, there must be an element of profiteering here if a premium increases overnight by 50%, 60% or 70% or if certain people have been locked out of the market when by any objective analysis their level of risk has not increased. My level of risk has not increased from 9 to 10 September when I renewed my car insurance. Do the witnesses see my point?