Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 12:

In page 12, line 37, to delete “except in cases where paragraph (d) applies,”.

This relates to the issue of covering vehicle fleets. Approximately 8% of private cars are fleet vehicles. In the published Bill, we asked for information relating to "the classes of persons whose liability is proposed to be covered by the policy and the number and classes of vehicles". Following further consideration, we now propose to recast this and divide it into two subsections. The first will require the name of persons covered in the policy and the second will require the class of driver covered. It is an important distinction because a policy will sometimes name drivers while other times it might cover a class of drivers, for example, heavy goods vehicle, HGV, drivers employed by a firm. By splitting the named drivers and class of drivers provisions into two subsections, we give ourselves the option to commence them separately. While I hope not to do that, it would be a useful option if the roll-out of the database was to take place in stages. We are not talking about the vehicles here. This is about the classification of the drivers. Reporting on vehicles held by a fleet is not to the insurer but directly to the Motor Insurers Bureau of Ireland, MIBI, and therefore to the database under section 56A(2) of the Act. This amendment is to provide greater flexibility in how companies might provide information on their drivers to the database.