Aidan Davitt (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank both groups for their presentations. They have been quite informative.

Insurance Ireland outlined the rise in costs and how it has tried to associate them back to claims. Some of the claims are noteworthy. From the figures they have given here, claims have risen from 6% to 12% per annum. They are not off the scale. I am trying to figure out how the sector can reconcile 2.5%, the lowest one I see here, to maybe 12% per annum, the highlight figure, with a rise in some insurance costs which are just jumping off the pages with consumers. Where is the correlation here? We have a plethora of figures on the rise in costs to the insurance sector which are beautifully correlated here. Mr. Thompson might explain.

Maybe consumers are not in the real world when they talk about insurance costs. I am sure the witnesses read the newspapers and everything else. Every second article is about how the cost of insurance has gone up, talk of cartels, competition and lot of stuff we heard here earlier. We had Mr. McCambridge, a retailer in Galway, here at our second last meeting. I am sure the witnesses have heard of him. He gave a detailed presentation of how his insurance premium went from €25,000 to €50,000, to €80,000 and it is at €100,000 now in the space of three and a half years, and he had no claim in this time. Maybe these are one-off cases. Maybe it is the one-off case that is being trumpeted in the media. It is certainly not my experience and what I am hearing from people on the ground. I myself can give a couple of examples. I am involved with a GAA club. I accept it might not be a run-of-the-mill case but its insurance has gone up nearly 300% in three years. That is a massive increase. It is more than doubling every year for the past three years. If I worked it out exactly, I would say it is higher than that.

I am curious about the correlation. These are all sad figures. I appreciate they are going up and the costs are going up. We wish they were not. Even blaming it all on the solicitors and associated costs, there does not seem to be a correlation between these figures and what consumers pay in premiums. Either that or we are getting the red herring cases instead of the truth. I feel many are telling the truth. It is not the red herring cases that are out there. I am curious on Mr. Thompson's thoughts on that firstly. I might talk to Mr. Maye afterwards, if that is okay.