Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Fine Gael)

Insurance is a particular industry and we know from contract law that a contract of insurance is a contract of uberimmae fidae, the utmost good faith. That is the core of the insurance service provided to customers and we must have people who are undoubted in character and who will not be tempted by the cash up-front from premiums without knowing how to reserve for the risks of the policies that they write. How come a person who built up a huge cement empire could be deemed to be experienced and competent to run an insurance company, one that is not a monoline, but a multiline insurance business? The thought is absurd. The ground has been covered by previous Deputies with regard to the reasons this legislation is being introduced. Essentially, it is being introduced to cover €1 billion of losses, €900 million that is recognised to date and a further €100 million or a little more to be reported in the year just ended.

Regulation, supervision and inspection did not occur. People who read the business sections of weekend newspapers will remember that just over a year ago, Tom Lyons of The Sunday Times wrote a very good forensic article on Quinn Insurance. He trawled over the ground of the fine that had been meted out by the regulator to the company. What happened was that just as PricewaterhouseCoopers came to the end of its audit for the accounts for the year ending 2008, it decided to inquire about the €400 million described as "balances on deposit", expecting to be furnished with certificates of bank balances for that amount. Instead, it was given the explanation that it was a loan repayable by Quinn Holdings Limited for cash reserves that had been "borrowed" by that company for its own purposes - nothing to do with insurance.

Therefore, we had the biggest borrowing - or may it be called "theft"? - of cash reserves of a non-life insurance company by, as previously described, the sovereign owners. I do not mean "sovereign" in the sense of Irish Republic, but in terms of what would be the "ducal" owners of this insurance group.

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