Ms Eimear McGuinness:

When we went into our first meeting in May or June 2016 in the Donegal area the insurance assessor examined how to improve health and safety, which was an issue. I have been told by other mart managers that the same thing happened throughout the country. When he came to our mart we had to put in safety pens for people to step into to avoid cattle on the passageways. They cost a lot of money. The insurer also wanted handrails and spoke about many other issues that day. It was basically a question and answer session on how we could improve things because they explained that the claims were drastic and something had to change. We felt the only thing we could do at that time was implement the safety measures, which we did. I told the committee at the time that we had no choice but to do this and we took out a loan and did the work. We cannot afford to pay any more insurance year on year. That was the first meeting.

I had a second meeting with the insurance company when it paid out on a claim of ours which I was totally against at the time. We had a field across from the mart and a man said he had been bitten by a horse in it. A livestock mart does not own or keep any animals but there was a horse in this field. I felt that claim should not have been paid. I wrote a letter stating that to FBD as our insurance provider. The company felt it had to pay out because that was cheaper than going to court and trying to argue the case. I was angry over that. I met the underwriters in Cavan town. The same happened that day. I brought my colleagues from Stranorlar and Milford marts with me and we spent the whole day discussing different ways to stop these public liability claims. That is what is causing the problem, not animal injuries or anything like that. The underwriter talked about not letting anybody into the yard. Many mart managers feel that cannot happen but I feel unfortunately because of the way the insurance system works that is all we can do.

We probably cannot fix everything today but I would like to come to some sort of understanding that the premiums have to come down. In answer to the question the insurance companies say the public liability claims are too drastic and they are losing money on the mart sector. It is of no benefit to them to have it. My feeling is that they take a lot of money from farmers throughout the industry and they should be able to absorb the cost into their companies.