Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

We are always very happy to come in here and outline the work we are doing. The purpose of the work is to provide a more stable insurance market for policyholders and to reduce prices. We are very happy to outline that at any stage. In the dialogue that I have with insurers, we are having a pretty straightforward conversation at the moment on motor insurance. It is a direct conversation on implementing the public liability changes that the Oireachtas put through in July and my expectation about the outcomes in that regard. It has initially been difficult to have a conversation about thatched buildings until we saw the work that the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, was doing because of the scale of the fire risk. It is difficult, from a commercial point of view, to tell insurers that they could do a bit more, but now it is a different proposition because the State is intervening to provide support and putting guidance in place. As long as that guidance is met, the insurers are happier to step into a market where it is a lower risk.

I can give other examples from across Europe of where insurance for thatched buildings is more expensive. It is because of the fire risk. In Ireland, it is also because of the scale. Denmark has 55,000 thatched properties. Ireland and Denmark are not entirely dissimilar in population, but we have 2,000 thatched properties. When any insurer steps into the market, it is trying to spread the risk of a single incident. If a thatched house burns down, often the whole roof will be gone because it goes on fire very quickly and can often result in the loss of the entire building. As a result, it is not just partial damage but complete damage. The scale of loss is considerable. As I have said, the prices in Denmark are four or five times higher than regular home insurance and that risk is spread across 55,000 homes. In our case it is 2,000 homes and the same risk applies.

In order to get market entrants, we need to reduce the risk of fire events and the risk of total loss. However, it is a conversation we constantly have with the goal of getting insurance. The Deputy is right that these are incredibly difficult conversations. Aside from all the policy work, this is about people and their homes, and that is what matters. We are trying to deliver policy responses that will get a result here.