Mr. Kevin Thompson:

I thank the Senator. I will take each of his points.

On an independent Garda fraud unit, we support the suggestion in principle at a very high level. We have been working with Departments to draft a straw man in terms of at what it might look. It is a model which has been implemented in the United Kingdom between the Association of British Insurers and the City of London Police. What makes it effective from their point of view is that the industry funds it, but the City of London Police has total operational independence.

It decides what it wants to do and how to do it and the industry has no input into it.

The second question was about the Central Bank of Ireland and the adoption of the prudential as against the conduct approach. The Central Bank has been heavily involved in the implementation of Solvency II and the industry has worked very closely with it. That is very positive as we see adequate solvency as the correct form of policy holder protection. The Central Bank has restructured to have a conduct and a prudential directorate. It has been heavily involved on the conduct side. It has brought forward many consumer protection regulations which we have adopted and implemented extensively. We do not see the need to split the two functions and fear the setting up of another regulatory arm would drive further cost into the system.

Another question was about liability insurance and the fact that only two of eight insurers in the market might quote. It is difficult to comment on situations in which companies will or will not quote, but there are 13 providers in the marketplace, with eight substantially writing liability insurance policies. The cost of insurance working group focused on employers' and public liability insurance and its report contains a graph which shows that freedom of services carriers, that is, insurance companies which are not domiciled here but which have passports have been writing more and more liability insurance policies, which we see as positive.

I wholeheartedly agree on the consequences of fraud. If somebody is proved to have committed fraud, there should be serious action and a criminal prosecution.

The question about a judge's explanation in respect of the book of quantum goes back to the good work of the cost of insurance working group and the Personal Injuries Commission to benchmark awards against those made in other countries. That is the first step in bringing about a reduction in the level of awards. We would welcome anything that would bring transparency to the reason an award at a particular level was made.