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

I move amendment No. 37:

In page 15, lines 1 and 2, to delete "and the name and address of any person other than the insured who is named in the policy" and substitute "and the name of any other person who is mentioned in the policy".

Amendment No. 37 makes two changes. The first is to drop the reference to the address. I referred to that earlier. We changed that in the context of the information provided to the insurer or agent by the client. The address of the persons on the policy is not required because, as I stated, we get that from the driving licence. The second change, which may relate to a question asked by Deputy O'Rourke, is to remove the term "insured" as a way of referring to the policy holder. As the Deputy stated, a policy holder is not necessarily the insured. In other words, a person may own a car but not drive it. He or she could take out a policy on the car so that another person can drive it. That is not common but it is something for which we need to allow. That is the nature of the amendment.

Amendment No. 38 changes the data to be provided by the insurers to the database in respect of fleet policies. The published text states that the insurer will provide the classes of persons covered by the policy. This will now be the names of the persons. We are also adding reference to policies held by a motor trader as these are similar to fleet policies but would not be captured by the present text, as referred to in a previous amendment. Finally, we are removing references to the vehicles covered. This is because that information will be provided directly to the database by the policy holder, rather than by the insurer.

Amendments Nos. 39 and 40 are small additions of a type we are making in a few places to add reference to intermediaries such as managing general agents, MGAs, after insurers. They, as well as insurers, will have to notify the database if a policy holder notifies them of changes to the information they have supplied. They, like insurers, will have to notify the database when a policy is cancelled.

Amendment No. 41 is more substantial. It adds an additional reason to the purposes for which the Minister may have access to the data. This will allow my Department to verify the validity of insurance coverage for vehicles to be authorised on a road transport operator licence. This is often an issue for the Department. For example, in the case of supports to the haulage industry recently, certain licensed vehicles were able to access such supports, while others were less able to do so. The amendment provides a joint capability within the Department in the context of sharing the insurance database details with the road transport operator licensing details. We currently rely on self-declarations and that would continue to be the case without the amendment. We do not have evidence that a person is in compliance with his or her insurance obligations.

Amendment No. 42 adds a reference to intermediaries alongside insurers. This will allow them to see the data they have uploaded to the database in order to verify or correct it. Under the amendment, MGAs will now be able to do the same.

Amendment No. 43 simply adds definitions of two terms, namely, "National Vehicle and Driver File" and "operator’s licence", used in the insurance-related amendments made by the Bill. It is largely a technical amendment.