Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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I understand that. We talked about the increases in insurance premiums, and the CSO gives us the average increase. The reality is that we have seen, or know of, people who have had increases of 100%, 200% or 300%. Those are bizarre increases for people who, as the Minister of State mentioned earlier, have made no additional claims or have not incurred penalty points. I have spoken to a large number of people in the sector and everybody has different views. When I cited certain examples, it was suggested to me that the insurance companies want those individuals off their books. They have basically quoted them exorbitant prices just because they may have too many females under the age of 35 on their books, so they increase a premium from €420 to €1,237. That is nearly a 200% increase. We have seen some examples of 300% increases.

We all know that we cannot interfere in setting insurance premiums, but insurance companies have to charge based on risk. Will the Minister of State's working group ask the insurance companies for a sample of the premium renewals they have quoted their customers that were in the 200% or 300% area? They should be asked to justify, on the basis of risk, how those premiums went up. It would be an interesting case study to see why Mary, who had a premium last year of €427, is being charged €1,237 this year, although she has had no accidents or penalty points. The insurance companies should be asked why that is the case.

Earlier on, the Minister of State suggested drilling down into the average premium to see what makes up the different components, which is helpful. Equally, however, the insurance companies need to be able to justify the increases based on risk. In some of these cases the increases are unjustifiable, yet the companies are able to get around it because they have too many of a certain cohort of individuals on their books. They want to de-risk that type of cohort, be it people living in rural areas, young people under 20, or people aged over 85. It is crucial that the companies be asked to justify such increases.