Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Chairman and I might have a similar opinion but I will wait until later on when the working group has completed its work, if I may. It is a group I chair and I would need to consult with it. I will, however, speak directly on the issues raised by the Chairman. An initial point is that I very much appreciate the public consultations that took place because the meetings of the working group did not happen in public and people were not able to hear the concerns we heard in the working group. The work done by the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach gave a real opportunity to different stakeholders to put their part of the case across publicly and to have their position challenged, which is important too. It has played a very important part in terms of the understanding we are coming to. From the chance I have had to look at the committee's report, which is very detailed and has a number of recommendations, I see a lot of alignment with the work done by the working group, and there is no surprise there. The Government and the Oireachtas share concerns around doing something to protect the consumer while also ensuring a stable and attractive market for these companies to operate in and to provide the necessary insurance. This process has evolved in a good way and I hope the way we have worked together to date can continue because it is in everyone's interests. If legislation is to come from government, I hope it would be agreed by the House so it could be implemented swiftly.

It is important to note that we are not coming at this from a standing start. Work is already under way, not just in our working group, but also in reviewing certain legislation, which the Chairman mentioned, and in technological developments that are already at an advanced stage but perhaps have not been implemented as quickly as we would have liked. When we publish the working group report in December, the timelines, actions and priorities we have will speak to the fact that work is already under way in certain areas and those areas will have shorter timelines. Where we see that priority action can be taken, because it can be an early win, we will certainly prioritise that action, always bearing in mind the fact that we will not be able to solve it overnight but should try to move quickly when we can. Pace is absolutely essential because it will send the correct signal to all the market players about how serious the politicians are to do something to protect consumers from the unfair spikes they have seen in recent years.

When one talks about section 4 of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board Act 2003, for example, the review is already ongoing, so we are not coming at it from a standing start. Reform of the Personal Injuries Board is essential and we have spoken to it in terms of our emerging recommendations. I note also that the Personal Injuries Board is part of our working group. We are aligned with it in what we hope to do, which is another important factor. There is no point in the committee or me coming out with recommendations for the Personal Injuries Board which it does not agree with or which it might not think were a priority. We have been able to make sure that our thinking is aligned with those people who want a similar outcome from this process.

Data is the key to understanding everything here and we just do not have the data we need. There is not the requisite transparency there is in other jurisdictions. Let us be clear, there are companies operating in Ireland which operate in other jurisdictions where they share data and are transparent with the data on a level that Ireland is nowhere near close to being. That really concerns me and it very much concerns the working group. We have strong recommendations which speak to that and to getting that data. Of course, it would be very helpful if the insurance industry was willing to come forward with the data in a way that the Chairman speaks of it. We would like to propose an independent body - this has to be finalised in the report - to decide on the defined standard sets to feed into the data, to then control it and share it in a transparent way with everybody. Data should not be held by certain parts of the industry and data should not be presented in such a way that it is not meaningful to the work we want to do. Data is key to understanding what we need to address around the claims channels and settlement channels in terms of understanding exactly what is happening and for those 70% of cases where there is no transparency. Some 10% of cases go to court and 20% go through the Personal Injuries Board but there is a mystery over what happens to the 70% of other cases. We need to lift the veil on that mystery, which is a crucial act which the Government and the Oireachtas need to take. We have recommendations that speak to certain sections of the Civil Liabilities and Courts Act on the review of the sections and the commencement of other sections. Since we published the emerging recommendations further sections have been brought to our attention.

The Chairman spoke about the hauliers. We looked at that initially but we need to look at it a bit more. We met the Irish Road Haulage Association. It is important to understand that hauliers who are getting insurance abroad have had to relocate in order to do that. There are a number of factors that might compel or attract a haulier to operate outside Ireland and insurance is one of those factors but, as the Chairman knows, there are other factors at play. These factors have been raised with the Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport and with Government and there are a number of issues at work there. We think there is a potential difficulty at EU level with what the hauliers are looking to achieve, namely, to remain registered in Ireland and to purchase insurance from companies in another jurisdiction which do not operate here, do not have freedom of services here and are not registered with the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland. There is not going to be a quick win there. If it requires a change at EU level, it will take time. We need to be clear about that with the hauliers. I believe I have addressed the issues raised by the Chairman in the first round.