Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

What kind of amendment would be acceptable to the Department that would focus on cost comparisons, information in respect of other European countries and comparative cost details? After all, the Central Bank is part of the European system of banks. The problem with Central Bank reports is that from the point of view of ordinary people, many of them are inevitably highly technical. Would the Minister of State be agreeable to providing broadly based information and comparators, including all other countries in the European banking system because they all collect data, so that is not putting any big burden on anybody? In respect of the ongoing conversation about insurance and how expensive it is, it would enable us to build up comparators over time that would be useful to policymakers here and give us insights into how much value for money is provided by insurance in Ireland compared with how much it costs. We have a lot of anecdotal information. In many European countries that are part of the same European central banking system, financial services like insurance are simply not as expensive as they are in Ireland. Would the Minister of State be open to discussing or even showing us what this report is likely to look like? Given that the Central Bank is a member of the European system, can we not see how it shapes up in terms of this kind of regulation compared with other European banks? Would the Minister of State accept an amendment like that? I appreciate that this is a Finance Bill so the ball is entirely in the Minister of State's court as to whether he accepts or rejects an amendment.