Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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Coming back to that issue, obviously, the Central Bank is allowing for that type of machine learning to take place for a renewal quote. This is how it works. Perhaps this is not being put into the equation, but undoubtedly what is spitting out from this machine learning is that the sectors I outlined are being targeted with higher premiums. The problem is that by allowing the first renewal premium to be price-swapped to allow that to happen, the Central Bank is not protecting customers in that regard.

The committee will look at that in a later session. Time permitting, I would like to come back in on the issue of public liability insurance. If not, it will be picked up by my colleagues. I will make two final points now.

The legislation I produced, namely, the Consumer Insurance Contracts Act 2019, was unanimously agreed by the Houses of the Oireachtas. Section 5 of that Act mandates the Central Bank to come forward with a code of practice. This code of practice would be used by the courts and by the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman in regard to cases that would be taken against insurance companies. When will the Central Bank produce that code of practice?

On business interruption, I have made the point over and over again that the Central Bank has done the bare minimum on business interruption. We are late to the game here. Again, I am comparing the Central Bank with what has happened within the FCA. We are speaking about hundreds of individual policies across Britain and the North of Ireland. A business person can look at any of the companies and the policy number and identify that this or that policy is affected or has an element of business interruption in it and so he or she would have a valid claim. The FCA has put a calculator on its website. When people insert their postcode, it provides information, for example, that there was a Covid case within 25 km, to satisfy the making of a claim. In Ireland, business people who are fighting all of the different issues in terms of the pandemic are left to fight on their own. There is no publication by the Central Bank in regard to policies that are covered under business interruption. In fairness, the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman has anonymised cases and that helps, but the Central Bank has done nothing of that nature.

I would strongly urge the Central Bank to up its consumer protection and to assist these businesses. It needs to be providing that type of support and level of assistance to businesses. Why has the bank not done that? The witnesses are obviously aware of what is happening across the water and in the northern part of this island. Perhaps they would update the committee on the number of businesses that have been compensated as a result of the interruption caused by the pandemic.