Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

No. The Chairman is right. The point I am trying to tease out is if 20%, which is 10,000 or 12,000, of the famous figure of 65,000, of claims were fraudulent, why so few were sent to the Garda. Ms Muldoon has rejected the claim. She said FBD is not paying out. It has reason to do that. It must have some evidence because people who make a claim will not just walk away when an insurance company does not pay them even though they paid their premiums. I would like to know why most claims do not end up being sent to the Garda fraud squad.

I want to make a final point. In my opinion, and I have had this row with the Minister and have said it on the record, exaggeration is fraud. There is this idea that fraud is only fraud if the claim is staged. Saying one drove 200 miles when one drove 20 is fraud. It is an exaggerated claim. It may not be as bad as staging an accident involving three cars where the people involved know each other and everybody drives at two miles an hour into a pothole, roadworks or something like that, but it is fraud.