John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No, I am talking about any cost facing businesses. I ask the Minister of State to bear with me.

One cannot simply single out motor insurance and state one will deal with public liability insurance later on. That does not work for business owners dealing in the current marketplace and who are giving employment. Nothing has happened and there has been no change, in spite of what I read in various media outlets. There is the odd press release claiming that the cost of insurance has come down but it has not. It has not come down in the transport business; it has actually significantly increased. A man sent me a text message this morning because he knew this meeting was coming up. He told me that in his business, insurance costs have increased during the past three years by 200%. The mart operators appeared before us. They simply cannot get insurance. People outside the Oireachtas who are watching and listening to what we are doing are not interested in the different avenues one must travel to deal with the different headings of insurance. They are interested in one thing, namely, whether their house insurance, motor insurance and public liability and employer's liability insurance have gone up. The answer to the question is that they have.