Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Most people accept that the data produced by the CSO as being reasonably valid. That is a long-established method for collecting statistics across every sector in Irish society and I do not believe for one minute that it does not do its job properly. However, in my role in respect of insurance, and this is a personal view, I will rely more on the information from the Central Bank than the CSO for the obvious reasons the Deputy mentioned. I refer, for example, the report it produced on Monday on differential and dual pricing. A couple of months ago it wrote to the CEOs saying it had evidence. That was the first statement. The second part of the work was that thousands of customers were surveyed, which gave us the information we got recently.

It has also said that the final and largest piece of the work will involve computer analysis of millions of documents on policyholders, claims and costs of insurance. The Central Bank, as the regulator, which has the access to most of the information of the insurance companies, will have the definitive information.