John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The regulator in this case is the Central Bank, and it does not have the information. We have not been able to extract the information from all of the players who came before the committee to discuss insurance. The hard data that are required to influence policy on this or to be able to put information out into the public domain for those who might want to enter the market to analyse, are not available. Someone has them but nobody seems to want to ask for them. This is the issue. The CSO would not be duplicating or getting into the area of regulation. It certainly would be getting into the area of giving a clear picture and analysis on the information that is available but which nobody seems to be collecting. An interesting answer Mr. Roux gave when he was here was that he gets the information from Insurance Ireland for which he asks. My question is, what other information is there? That is not the question he was asked. He was asked whether he got all of the information. The answer was that he got what he asked for. Somebody needs to ask all of the questions of Insurance Ireland, and anywhere else the information can be got, to compile such a report. This does not need an in-depth conversation or consideration because the information is there. Really, what Mr. Dalton is saying is that apart from this, it requires the CSO to be given the remit to do it.