Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

While the solvency II directive will bring greater clarity and lower the solvency requirement level to between 20% and 30%, the timeframe for its implementation is 2012-13. As to the timeframe for the Commission's recent decision, we expected it to issue within three months of notification. We notified the Commission in October or November last but the decision was not issued until the past two weeks. While I am not certain a decision will take 18 to 24 months, that has been our experience in the past. I hope the VHI will be authorised much sooner than that.

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