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

The biggest element of that is the personal accident injury guidelines, where people who have a slip, trip or fall hurt their back or neck. Up to now, awards were given under the old regime before the new Government came in and the new guidelines were set by the Judiciary, at the Government's request. The Government did not write the new reduced award levels, and neither did the industry or consultants, it was the Judiciary that did the job because judges are the people in court who make the decisions. They have made decisions on what the reduced awards should be, and they are the people adjudicating on them. We have seen a 40% reduction in recent months for small injuries to make the insurance environment much more affordable. Some of those awards are under judicial review. The ones that have come through that process have been very good in that the reduced awards have been stood over. The reason for the judicial reviews is that people are not happy with the reduced awards. They say that if they had the same accident three years ago, they would have got more than they are getting now. It is human nature that the awards are being challenged, but the courts are standing over the awards. I hope in the very immediate future the last of these judicial review cases will be confirmed in the High Court and then the insurance companies will be able to pass on reduced premiums with certainty.

That is not specifically to do with the thatched roof industry, but if the insurance companies that operate from Europe and America in Ireland now see Ireland as a stable place to issue insurance, we will get more insurance companies into the market when they see the stability.