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

I move amendment No. 53:

In page 41, between lines 20 and 21, to insert the following: “(i) by the insertion of “or intermediary with specific sanction from a vehicle insurer to conclude insurance contracts on its behalf” after “vehicle insurer”. ”.

In section 15(c) of the Bill, we are amending the provisions of the Road Traffic Act 2014 which allow vehicle insurers to see endorsements of penalty points on a driver licence record. The original 2014 provision allows for access to the records so that insurers could factor in penalty points when pricing insurance, which is a valuable public benefit.

The published Bill will allow for access when "processing" rather than "issuing" insurance policies, so that insurers will have access when changes are made mid-term to a policy, such as when a new driver is added. We are now going to add an amendment here in order that access will be permitted for managing general agents. As we said earlier, they act on behalf of insurers operating in the State. One reason for doing this relates to the European Commission competition rules. These drew our attention to the fact that if insurers but not their agents have access to the data, then there might not be a playing field. This change is to provide that level playing field and, essentially, to comply with our obligations in the context of the Single Market.