John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I want to raise with all companies the letter they received from the Central Bank on 11 June 2021. It covers the Covid-19 and business interruption insurance expectations in relation to costs and the criteria for test cases. The letter sets out the Central Bank of Ireland’s expectations, which include arbitrations, proceedings before the courts, or indeed the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman. I want to get the companies’ reactions to that letter and see what actions they have taken arising from it. The letter talks about an impact assessment to ascertain whether there should be wider beneficial impacts, and it requires the companies to do this. Will the companies brief us on what they have done to date? The letter asks that the companies consider the publicly available outcomes of legal actions.

It then goes on to state: "In light of the expectation that an impact assessment will be carried out, certain legal actions may be capable of acting as a test case." I ask the witnesses for their attitude towards that. Further down in the letter, it mentions that "the Central Bank's expectation is that where the outcome of a legal action could be said to apply to a number of other policyholder customers, the plaintiff in such a case should not suffer financial prejudice as a result of taking the legal action and the relevant insurer should agree to pay the reasonable costs of such customer plaintiffs." The final page of the letter states: "The Central Bank may request insurers to produce their analysis of whether a legal action is likely to have a broader application to the position of customers other than the plaintiff." The letter goes on to say that the Central Bank expects insurers "to take an appropriate position in relation to the costs of any test cases." What is the witnesses' general reaction to that? Have the organisations represented responded in detail to the Central Bank on each of those points? What steps have the organisations taken in compliance with those requirements? I ask for a general comment on the impact assessment and the legal analysis. Have the organisations represented provided their legal analysis of the requirement for a test case to the Central Bank and will they provide a copy to the committee? I will start with the representative of FBD Insurance.