Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to what the Minister of State has said on that issue. On being prescriptive, the reality is that insurance companies are not to be trusted. They are under investigation for engaging in cartel-like activities and were raided by European authorities. I have no qualms in saying they are ripping people off. I received an email late last night from a person who was being fleeced in seeking to get motor insurance. It is not possible to pay insurance premiums upfront. The insurance companies are then allowed to add additional charges because people pay in monthly instalments. No matter what way they turn, they feel under serious pressure. To tell the Minister of State God's honest truth, I would not trust insurance companies as far as I could throw them. We know that this happens. We know that businesses and accountants look at how expenses can be offset from a subsidiary here to one elsewhere to present figures in a different way and that best suits it. Amendment No. 3 would not limit how business expenses would be defined, but it sets out clearly what needs to be included. I do not, therefore, hear any reason it should not be included. The Minister of State, rightly, talked about it not being in keeping with the Bill, as drafted. He will see, however, in a number of my amendments, that I believe that, as legislators, after what we have come through and given the reasson we know that this is needed, we do not need to agree to loose legislation that allows the Central Bank which I trust to interpret what we would like to do. The Central Bank is independent in implementing Acts and using powers passed by the Houses of the Oireachtas. There is interaction where we set down the ground rules for how this issue will be dealt with. Therefore, we do need to be more prescriptive. The reality is that this has been happening and the Central Bank has not been the great protector of consumers who have witnessed increases of 70% over a period of three years. The Central Bank was also not the great protector of consumers when it came to the scandal of tracker mortgages, etc. There is, therefore, an onus on us to be prescriptive to a certain degree. That is what amendment No. 3 attempts to do. It tries to ensure, in so far as is possible, that we will not see the industry using its accountants to try to cook the books. I refer to the use of business expenses as a way to reduce the figures that the industry will present in the claims database.