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

That is a very important point. It was strongly made within the working group - by one of the subgroups that is examining the claims element of it - in the context of ensuring that we would not do anything that would undermine the protections that are currently in place. The point of insurance companies is to pay out on claims. That is why they exist and that is why we have insurance. It is important, though, that we have a claims environment that can deliver some certainty for all involved in terms of the time and the cost to make the claim and to pay out on the claim. That is something we want to protect.

In January, the working group will start to look at other areas of non-life insurance in which spikes have also been experienced. I mentioned to some members earlier that businesses, particularly in terms of their premises, have been experiencing those spikes too. From January, we will adopt a twin-track approach that will involve monitoring the implementation of our recommendations to our performance indicators and milestones and then moving on to those other areas in non-life insurance to which an importance also attaches. Some of the practices are similar as well as to what it happening on the side of the insurance companies, so some of the work we have done already will feed into that area naturally.