Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

How can an individual insurance company assess that kind of risk? Is it taken as granted? Do the companies ordinarily proceed with the cover or do they refer to anybody to examine it? Do insurers say to themselves, "I do not think this is a very good risk and we should not have it"? I pursued this issue ten years ago. I came to the conclusion that there could have been a serious amount of cover offered for various high-risk financial transactions, which were unsafe or highly speculative. I believe since that claims might have been paid. In response to an earlier question Mr. O'Rourke said they would have been small amounts and it would be very small in the context of the Irish industry, and so on and so forth. Like bookies with a bet they do not want to handle, they could have lay off the risk to a European insurer. I am not trying to trivialise it. I became familiar with all of these routes at the time, and I have one more. Will Mr. O'Rourke clarify the degree to which the insurance companies evaluate the liability they take on in some of these circumstances, and especially with medium- to high-risk financial transactions?