Mr. Michael Horan:

We have not disputed the CSO motor insurance index. Deputy Doherty has quoted it plenty of times. What I am saying is that the CSO motor insurance index has reduced over the past three years, since mid-2016. It is 27% lower now than it was in mid-2016. That correlates with the fact that motor claims costs are stabilising and falling and that is flowing through into pricing as the CSO index shows. The point I am making is that the reason motor claims costs have stabilised is that damage claims primarily have fallen. These include policyholder damage claims, third party damage claims and windscreen claims.

We have not actually addressed the defining issue, namely, the high level of personal injury awards in Ireland, especially for soft tissue injuries. Some 80% of motor claims are for whiplash. We need to address the defining issue. The high level of awards is a cost and a problem. It has bedevilled the Irish claims environment for decades. We need to address that fundamentally. Earlier this week, we welcomed the announcement by the Chief Justice of the interim personal injuries guidelines committee as part of the Judicial Council, which will recalibrate those awards.

We welcomed the other point made by the Chief Justice that in future when those judicial guidelines are produced judges who depart from the guidelines would need to explain why they have done so. That would bring more consistency as well. This is something the insurance industry sought for many years. We need consistency in award levels because historically there has been a lack of consistency and this makes insurance companies uncomfortable in terms of their reserving.

We want more consistency and we want to see a recalibration of awards to reduce the differential that exists between high whiplash awards in Ireland and those in the UK. More than €20,000 can be got for a whiplash award in Ireland and much less in the United Kingdom.