Mr. Peter Boland:

I will respond on that in the round and will ask Ms Sheridan to come in from her own perspective on this. We were very hopeful when the Cabinet subgroup on insurance reform was established. As I said, it has most of the relevant Ministers and Ministers of State on it. We were quite positive about it at the time. We welcomed the list of actions in its action plan, with a certain number of caveats. We have experience of its predecessor - the cost of insurance working group - which was an intensely frustrating box-ticking exercise that regressed into administrative changes rather than genuine reform. The early moves, which already had some momentum before the establishment of the subgroup, have been very positive. The judicial guidelines, in particular, those implemented by the Judicial Council in April this year, are a big step subject to all the challenges thrown against it at present. The big concern is that, since then, the momentum seems to have dissipated. We have outlined the two most important by far of these issues. There were deadlines in place, which we welcomed, and both those deadlines have been missed. We are very concerned at this stage about whether we are making any real progress.

To be honest, this is not an à la carteprocess. The progress we have made to date will have some impact, but unless the reforms in the round are implemented, we will be looking at this issue in another ten years and another ten years beyond that. There have been several half-hearted attempts to reform the insurance market in previous decades. If this is done right, it has a chance to get it right and get it off the agenda. We are laughed at when we talk to our European colleagues and we tell them that insurance is an existential issue in the country. For most of them, it is like suggesting the electricity bill will put them out of business. It is unprecedented and it will continue to be unprecedented unless we get it all right. Right now, we are concerned that we are not. I will ask my colleague, Ms Sheridan, to give her insight into that.