Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising the question. I will give him a straight answer. The only form of insurance where there is a legal requirement to have insurance in Ireland is motor insurance. There is no legal requirement for anyone to insure a house, business or anything else, but there is a legal requirement in respect of motor insurance. As it is a legal requirement for the industry and it is obligatory for every car on the road to be insured, if a person has difficulty in getting insurance, for example, due to a bad claims record, there is still an obligation. They have a constitutional right to have a car and a legal obligation to have insurance so the insurance industry is obliged to ensure one of its members quote for insurance. There is a legal obligation for that in the system. That does not apply to anything other than motor insurance because every other insurance policy in Ireland is voluntary. People can buy insurance if they want to and if they do not want to, they do not have to. That system does not apply to any sector of society other than the motor industry because there is a legal obligation.

There are approximately 2.2 million houses in Ireland. No one has hard information on this but our approximate information is that fewer than 1.6 million houses are insured. That tells me that approximately 600,000 houses in Ireland are without insurance. That is the choice of their owners. Perhaps it is because of the cost or perhaps the owners do not feel the need to insure. In those situations there is no obligation.

The Deputy mentioned the possibility of the State being involved. I will be upfront on this. FBD is the only homegrown insurance company left in Ireland. We have had issues with Irish insurance companies going bust in the past and we are all paying for that in levies every year. We have to pay into a fund to help to recoup some of that cost. As insurance is a product that can be provided across the EU, it is governed by the solvency II directive, which is an EU directive on insurance. That means that all insurance companies must comply will the same prudential rules. They cannot sell at a loss, leading them to go into liquidation. If the State - and I use the word "if" - or any state of the EU, were to consider providing insurance to a particular sector of industry, it would be legally obliged to ensure it met all the solvency and liquidity directives under the scheme it set up. That would mean it would only be able to provide insurance at the normal rate available in the industry. The taxpayer is not allowed to subsidise an insurance policy when other people in the same insurance market are buying without a government subsidy. If the Government were to do it, it would have to be done on the basis of making a profit. It could not be done on the basis of making a loss that would be subsidised by the taxpayer. That essentially means that if the State were to go there, it would have to provide the insurance at the going market rate. It could not offer a cheaper rate than the going market rate.