Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I agree with the objective. To take a hypothetical situation, if we pass the Judicial Council Bill and if we set up the council - there are a number of ifs - we may reach a position where that panel recommends, for example, that soft tissue injuries, such as whiplash, would be cut by half, given these make up the majority of claims in the first instance. However, the industry is not indicating that this would result in premium reductions of X%. There is nothing from the industry side. Therefore, the industry has forced us into a dealing with a matter which we would deal with in any event. If the claims are too high, they are too high. If there are fraudulent claims, they need to be stamped out. The problem is that the industry is sitting back and looking at its profits increase dramatically, It then sees these reforms, which are only going to push up its profits unless it decides to pass them back. If the industry is stating that high claims for soft tissue injuries are affecting the industry, it will be able to do the calculations and it should be able to turn around and say that if the book of quantum said X amount for soft tissue injuries, say, €7,000 as opposed to €15,000, that would result in a premium reduction for motorists of 10% across the board, although these are hypothetical figures. The industry is not willing to do that and the question is why that is the case. In my view, it is because it does not want to be held accountable. We need to get the companies where they were in 2012, when there was an action plan and, although we were in the same type of crisis, there was a commitment from them. However, Insurance Ireland is a different animal from its predecessor. I would encourage the Minister of State to deal with that.

I want to talk about the Central Bank. The Central Bank ceased to publish private motor insurance statistics in 2015. The statistics published that year told us something very clear - I ask the Minister of State to remember this point - namely, that the average cost per policy, which combines cost per claim and claim frequency, in year one declined for both comprehensive and third-party fire and theft. The average cost per policy decreased by 4% from 2014 to 2015, from €272 to €261 for comprehensive cover. Third-party reduced from €288 to €272. In terms of frequency, comprehensive policies saw a decrease from 5.2 claims per 100 policy years in 2014 when compared with the previous year. The number of third-party claims decreased from 3.7 claims per 100 policy years. In 2015, the statistics showed that the costs to insurers appeared to have fallen.

We had transparency when the Central Bank was producing private motor insurance statistics. The last time it published them, in 2015, we were able to see that the cost to the insurers per policy was reducing for comprehensive insurance, the cost per policy was reducing for third party, the number of claims that were being made was reducing to 5.2 per 100 policies for both comprehensive and third party and the cost to the insurers was falling. However, what happened to premiums in the same year that all of this was happening? Premiums from January to December 2015 went up by 30%. There is only one beneficiary of the Oireachtas or the Central Bank ending the private insurance motor insurance statistics and that is the insurance companies. They can come in here and feed us bullshit about claims, about premiums and about this, that and the other, and we do not have the statistics to argue. We have to rely on statistics from back in 2015, when we can see very clearly that everything was going in the other direction yet they decided to increase premiums by 30%. I would argue strongly that we need to get those data back. It is one of the big issues in terms of transparency. We need to have the granular detail. We need to know exactly what is going on with this industry - an industry that is under investigation both domestically and at European level, rightly so. This would mean we can make a proper calculation of what is actually happening.

In my view, the CSO also has a role in the context of calculating the real cost of insurance for both motorists and businesses, an issue on which I have spoken to the Minister of State before. I have huge regard for the CSO. It is brilliant. However, there is no point in the CSO telephoning and saying, "Hello, AXA Insurance, this is Mr. so-and-so from the CSO, we are doing our monthly survey on insurance costs and we want to ask what is the price for this, that and the other." The insurance companies are wise to this. If I phone up looking for an insurance premium and the Minister of State phones up looking for the same, we can get two different quotes. It is not that they know it is the CSO; the CSO introduces itself. Therefore, there is now a question around the credibility of the CSO data. The insurance industry itself disputed the CSO data when the premiums were increasing by 70%.

The other advocates and consumers are now questioning the CSO data because they believe it has been manipulated by the industry. That is not something about which any of us should be shocked. Deputy Michael McGrath spoke about the fact that the evidence from the Insurance Reform Alliance, consumer groups and our experience is that what the data is now showing does not reflect the experience of individuals out there.