Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will talk about dual pricing in a minute. That is not the issue, however. I congratulate the Minister of State on his appointment and I am sure he wants to tackle this issue. However, he signed off on a report in October stating that this action was satisfactorily completed and that insurance companies were telling their customers why premiums were increased.

It is odd if the Minister of State did not know that dual pricing was an issue at that time. He cannot take the insurance companies at their word. He can have as many meetings with them as he wants. They are under investigation, however, at European level. Now they are looking at criminal investigation by our authorities into price-rigging. They have been lying to and fleecing their customers for so long. The Minister of State should not sign off on a report and take the word of the insurance industry that it is being upfront, honest or acting professionally or with integrity with its consumers. That is not happening. Unfortunately, that is what the Minister of State did.

The problem is that we have had too many Governments which have spun the industry's message. Then we are trying to battle against all the false narratives. For example, one of the final sections of the Central Bank report refers to false narratives such as costs of claims increases and fraud. While there are issues in that regard which have to be dealt with, none of this is the reason insurance premiums have been increasing. One of the main reasons is actually price-walking or dual pricing which is about boosting the profits of the industry. The Minister of State should not take the industry at its word. He needs to challenge everything it says. It is unfortunate that one of the first things the Minister of State did was suggest that recommendation No. 1 was implemented when, clearly, it was not. There are questions whether the companies should be legally pursued as a result of it.