Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I do not wish to get overly bogged down in the inner workings and revenue streams of Insurance Ireland but it is relevant to much of what we have been discussing. This is our fifth day of hearings and the witnesses have probably sat through almost as much of it as we have. The industry is not regarded kindly by many of the people who were in here. We are here trying to represent the public. We have all seen insurance premium increases of 35% to 40% in a year, 70% over two years, and individuals have experienced vastly greater increases. As a corollary, some people must be lower than the average but there are huge increases across the board affecting everybody.

The witnesses are the voice of the insurance sector and their role is to represent and support the development of the sector in the interests of both their members and customers. That is fair enough. How many staff are in the organisation? It has been said it is a not-for-profit organisation and is not a return-to-shareholder type scenario.