Mary Harney (Dublin Mid West, Progressive Democrats)

I cannot accept this amendment which would allow an insurance company to offer a product for 24 hours. In other words, an insurance company could offer a product to a particular company, many of whose members are young people, and give them 24 hours to make up their mind about it before anybody else has an opportunity to hear about it. Competitors of the VHI made a complaint to me on this issue. It is completely unreasonable and is not in the interests of consumers or others who would like to avail of those products to have the period deleted. I am proposing that companies cannot withdraw their product after one day and that they must have it on the market for a period of no less than 31 days.

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