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

I have a question on this. Sections 5 and 6 relate to the issue of dual pricing. Unfortunately, this practice is where companies are identifying loyal but often vulnerable customers who might not have the ability to look around insurance companies and are less likely to shop around, but are also more than likely more sensitive to price changes and so forth. It is often recognised that price gouging undermines the interests of loyal customers, and this has long been talked about in the House.

Indeed, it is something a lot of customers talk about a lot as well. It is welcome that the Central Bank is taking action in regard to banning price discrimination. This is clearly something Deputy Pearse Doherty has been campaigning on for a long number of years and, in fact, he submitted a complaint as far back as October 2019.

What is important is that when regulations come into force, they are kept under constant review. We know that the Central Bank had previously found that 2.5 million customers were paying a combined €187 million more than the actual cost of their policies, which is very significant. Can the Minister of State advise in regard to keeping these regulations under constant review, if that will be happening and how he sees that going forward?