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

That is a difficult hypothetical question to answer. The Deputy is asking if this report had been in place three years ago would it have prevented some of the things that have happened in terms of the increase in premiums. Many years ago there was a severe reduction in insurance premiums, from which the insurance industry is still recovering. The spike we have witnessed in the past year or more is based on some of the uncertainties that have come into the market from the insurance sector perspective, including the Setanta case, the impending introduction of periodic payment orders and so on. While the personal injuries aspect has not changed that much in three years, we still appear to be outliers. A number of uncertainties that have arisen in the past year or two, including the change in court jurisdiction limits, have driven the spike. Issues such as the difficulty to find yield in the investment environment, the low cost of premiums that were being offered, which were unsustainably low, arose earlier than two or three years ago. The Deputy's question is too difficult a hypothetical question to answer.