Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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To pick up on Deputy Farrell's point, do we need a new data source for the database? If we are looking at motor insurance, for example, seven out of the eight largest motor insurance providers in the State are the same as seven of the eight largest motor insurance providers in Britain. When the costs of whiplash were reduced by legislation there, the companies, including AIG, AXA, Allianz, Aviva and Zurich, all the same companies that operate here, were mandated to provide information to the Financial Conduct Authority to state what premium they are charging today and what premium they would have charged the same customer if it was not for the reduction in rewards. Unfortunately, we will now have to fiddle around with the national claims information database, look at premiums that are reducing, and figure out whether it was because of Covid, trends in increasing investment income as we move out of lower returns, or if it was actually because of awards. That is the crucial point. There is no way that that can be determined, unless the insurance industry provides its own algorithms and costings, which have to be independently audited as a result of what happens in Britain. Is that type of information not the only way that we can really verify that, euro-for-euro, pound-for-pound?

The industry came into the room that I am sitting in, sat over there, and told us that it wants us to legislate to cut awards. We delivered on that. The Judiciary delivered on that. The insurance industry is pocketing the money. Businesses are not seeing any reduction. Motorists see some reduction but not at the scale that the CEOs of those companies told us they would delivery. Some of the reduction that is being seen in motor insurance is because there are fewer accidents, since there are fewer cars on the roads with the restrictions that are in place. Surely we need a new data source that is verifiable and independently audited if we are ever to be able to actually say that the reduction as a result of the personal injury guidelines has been passed on euro-for-euro, or that 90% or 80% of it has been passed on? I will never know and the Central Bank will never know unless we ask the same companies to provide the same information that they provide in Britain.