Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

There is a certain amount of visibility when cases go to court. In one case a person who was injured while carrying tea under her arm was awarded €85,000 against Starbucks. In another case, somebody made a claim for injury after having hot chocolate on a Ryanair flight. We know that about 70% of claims are settled, 20% are dealt with by the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB, and 10% go to court. Insurance Ireland usually informs us that it does not have the information we are seeking. Will the representatives of the individual insurance companies indicate whether they identify clusters of claims based on geographic areas, such as parts of counties or cities, or by particular families to find out the reason for these clusters? Does it identify areas where there have been a history of claims? How is that done? It is clearly in the interest of the insurance companies to reduce payouts. We all pay the premiums. What are insurance companies doing to tackle areas where people seem to be much more accident prone? Is anything being done in that regard by the insurance companies?