Mr. Oliver Gilvarry:

I cannot comment on the particular case mentioned by the Deputy relating to productivity aspect of the public sector and the Civil Service. The council is looking at productivity in this area and the plan is that before the end of the year or early in January, we will have a bulletin examining the question of productivity in the public sector. In the initial look at this, not only from an Irish perspective but a European, global and definitely advanced economies perspective, there is not a huge amount of data. The council is looking at it and we will have a bulletin on productivity within the public sector.

On the insurance side, the council's role is to provide independent advice to the Government or the Taoiseach via the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment. With insurance, we have seen entities providing insurance into Ireland from the UK but which had no other operation in the Union, and that process was affected by Brexit. There options were either to stop providing insurance into an EU member state such as Ireland or to establish a presence in the Union. If they were really only servicing the Ireland and UK market, a number of them would have decided, because of the size of our market, it was not worth their while.

We should focus on the measures that have been put forward to reduce the costs of premiums, including changes to the PIAB judicial reforms and civil liability reforms. This will give greater certainty over the cost of claims and make the market more attractive for entrants. It is very much where we were in council this year and we pushed for those reforms. In particular, we want an early review of the judicial guidelines that replaced the book of quantum to see if the process is working and what tweaks need to be made. That is how we are looking at dealing with the issue of firms leaving the Irish market that have been operating out of the UK.