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

Nobody knows the answer to that question. I am honest enough to say that. We understand that approximately 800 houses have insurance recurring on a year-to-year basis. The issue is about those which do not have insurance or where a property changes hands and the new owner cannot get insurance. The owner will get a renewal if there is no change in ownership but the issue, as we speak, is that the majority of those 2,000 properties do not have insurance.

The answer to the Chair's question is that we have asked a couple of the major brokers to look into it. Some of them quoted a figure off the top of their heads without looking at the data. There is no magic figure. Logic tells me that a broker is in a strong negotiating position with a group of 300 people, but a group of 400 or 500 people means that broker is in a much stronger position to negotiate with insurance companies. We will ask for feedback from brokers on what they believe is a reasonable group scheme, whether it is large or small. There is no one magic figure. I do not know what that figure is but we will undertake to talk to the underwriters through the brokers as to what would be a good, viable group scheme for a broker to give a quote to. We have seen it in the other industries I mentioned, and in play areas and bouncy castles. It depends on the size of the premiums a broker can put together in order to go to an insurance company. We will come back with information when the brokers give us some indication of what they consider to be a viable group.