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

One of the most helpful things that happened last year was this committee's public hearings. The committee got to hear what I was hearing privately, which was the complexity of the issue. I knew from the outset that I could not have a direct influence on the price or set the price due to a number of reasons we have gone through before about the companies having to price on risk and the different EU laws that guide that. I knew that we would have to make sure that we were clear in our objectives, that we had a clear timeline to meet those objectives, that there was support across the House to get that work done, so that as the legislation comes up we can get it through, and that there will be regular reporting to demonstrate that we were doing this. In each of my engagements with the individual insurance companies and my regular engagements with Insurance Ireland, I made sure to ask them that if we give it clarity on exactly what we want to do would that bring stability in terms of the insurance industry's ability to price the market? It said it would. In bringing stability, it gives the opportunity to deliver fairer premiums for consumers. A fairer premium is one that does not see a 30% jump when there has been no change in driver behaviour, no new penalty points, no change in car and so on. That is what we are trying to do with this. Unfortunately, I cannot tell the Senator what type of change person A or B will see in month C or D, because it will come down to his or her specific circumstances. A driver might feel it very unfair that because he or she has three penalty points, he or she will see the insurance jump up-----