Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 30:

In page 9, between lines 35 and 36, to insert the following: “(6) The Central Bank shall report on the addition of public liability insurance to the Non-Life Insurance (Provision of Information) (Renewal of Policy of Insurance) (Amendment) Regulations 2018 within one month of the passing of this Act.”.

This amendment is intended to allow discussion. The biggest reform we need is transparency. This was meant to be achieved through the national claims information database. I pushed for far more transparency in that database and I am concerned that it is simply an internal database and adds nothing to public transparency. Nevertheless, it is the best facility we have at the moment but it is only taking data for motor insurance. We have discussed this issue on many occasions. We are years into a crisis with public liability for small businesses. It is an emergency in my view, yet we have almost zero transparency in the field of public liability insurance. The Central Statistics Office does not collect those statistics. We have CSO data on motor insurance but not on public liability insurance. We are, therefore, completely blindfolded on this matter and at the mercy of what the industry tells us. In recent days, we have shaken to the core the credibility of that industry. Given that this information is not collected, the amendment proposes that the Central Bank report back within one month on adding public liability insurance to the database. It would not require the bank to provide that data within one month. We need progress to be made on the issue of public liability insurance.