Mairead Farrell (Galway West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to wish everyone a happy Christmas and new year. We have seen a lot of each other over the recent weeks and months. I hope everyone has a good one.

I want to raise the issue of price walking. On 21 October on "The Claire Byrne Show" on RTÉ Radio 1, the Minister of State repeatedly said that this legislation would ban price walking. However, that was not the case. On 16 November on "Morning Ireland" on RTÉ Radio 1, the Minister of State said that he was introducing legislation to eliminate the loyalty penalty in motor and home insurance and said again "we are going to eliminate it entirely". He was referring to this legislation. However, that was not true either. Head 4 of the general scheme relates to dual pricing or price walking. It will require the Central Bank to hand a report to the Minister. It will not ban the loyalty penalty. Am I correct? The Central Bank has the regulatory powers to end the loyalty penalty. This is what it is doing. Its representatives confirmed that to the committee last week. However the legislation itself will not end the loyalty penalty. It will produce a report. I am trying to understand why the Minister of State has gone to such great lengths to say that the legislation will ban dual pricing, as he has said publicly on national radio, when all the Bill will do is put a report on his desk. Does he accept that he has made a number of misleading statements on the legislation and the loyalty penalty?