Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Anti-Austerity Alliance)
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I thank the Minister of State. Apologies, I missed earlier. It is one of those days.

Listening to what the Minister of State stated in the radio interview this morning, the key repeated phrase is "managing expectations". That is not complex code. It is code stating that what motorists expect is that the massive hikes in premiums and the discrimination against all sorts of different groups of drivers will be reversed. The Minister of State is correct to think, in terms of the model he has put forward and what the working group will look at, that is unlikely to happen because he and the Government have already tied their own hands behind their back in advance of engaging in this in terms of what they have ruled out. There will be no directives on pricing because these are private companies and one cannot direct them what to do and there will be fundamentally nothing in terms of regulation - legislative change that forces companies to do different things. It is not unfair to say what is being talked about is largely tinkering around the edges.

This is not new. It is a problem that has gone through different phases and there have been particular crisis moments. These crises have reduced and then returned. In 2002, there was a report by the Motor Insurance Advisory Board precisely because at that stage there was huge public pressure, there was an outcry about it and something had to be done. It produced 67 recommendations, many of which were good and were acted on and which had some impact. However, we are back to where we were before.

An issue the Motor Insurance Advisory Board found and which the Minister of State is partly pointing towards is the co-operation of the insurance companies. The insurance companies are not likely to be fully transparent. They are not likely to on their own bat open up their books to show what is really happening because it is in their interest to make as much profit as possible without coming under pressure about that profit. The board's summary report stated, "It has not been this board's experience that insurers have willingly provided all material information in the fulsome manner which the Minister is entitled to expect." That, in the unique language of reports, states basically that the insurance companies told the board were to go and it would not get the information sought. I suspect what the committee and the Government will get is largely the same, namely, more partial information to tell a partial story. Let us engage in the discussions and let us get the information.

The issue is fundamentally about profit and the for-profit model of car insurance that we have. It was reported that there was a briefing document to the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport which states, "Motor insurers are now imposing higher premium rates to return themselves to profitability or to boost profitability after a number of years of insurers competing for market share, with prices driven down". Fundamentally, this is about profit and a return to as much profit as can be made by car insurers. That was not any different in 2002.

In 2002 they found that between 1983 and 1999 the return on car insurance in Ireland was 11 times greater in terms of profit than in the United Kingdom. Profits between 2003 and 2008 have been around the 50% mark over percentage of claims. It is a significant rate of profit for corporations to be making. As there are huge levels of profit made by these companies, does the Minister of State agree that profit may be the problem? Does he agree that those companies will fight tooth and nail to maintain those levels of profit because that is what they do?

The model of car insurance should be part of the discussion instead of individual elements. There are international examples and it is not just a case of pointing to some socialist dream world where these things exist. There are state-owned not-for-profit models of car insurance in a number of different countries, including Canada and Australia. In a number of those countries it is paid for through fuel, so there is no way somebody can be an uninsured driver; if somebody is driving a car, he or she is insured. That deals with a number of problems and takes profit out of it. I welcome the Minister of State's personal view that this is not the ideal model, but perhaps in our discussions in committee we can consider the issue in terms of different models in different countries. We can find different experts. We can just do what we did in 2002 again and get back to the same point, but a different model is needed.