Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and his officials. Just as the meeting started, an email landed in our inboxes from the Alliance for Insurance Reform with the results of a survey of its members. There were 494 respondents to the survey and the headline result was that the cost of insurance for small businesses and charities has increased by an average of more than 200% in five years. Some 49% of respondents indicated that rising insurance costs threaten their business or activity. The Minister of State noted that we still do not have an index of business insurance costs - employer or public liability. In the absence of official data, does he accept the figures provided by the Alliance for Insurance Reform showing the types of increases that are occurring?