Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

The Minister is about to answer Deputy Doherty's question. Although I asked the officials about the matter, I want to be clear. If the insurance industry is regulated to ensure companies have sufficient assets to meet claims and so on, how can the claim of the policyholder on the company's assets be trumped by the claim of the bondholder? I cannot figure it out. If the insurance company's assets are specifically intended to ensure sufficient provision to pay out on policyholders' claims, surely they have some protection and cannot be used subsequently as security for other loans. It is extraordinary that these assets would be misused to acquire loans to cover Mr. Quinn's speculative gambling behaviour and that the bondholders could have a stronger legal or other claim over them than the policyholders.

I ask this question because the Minister is presenting it as not being a bad deal, since the bondholders would have a claim on the assets. How is their claim legally stronger than that of the policyholders? If it is, surely something is amiss with our insurance law, as it would give priority not to the policyholders, but to the bondholders who lent to Mr. Quinn. In return, they demanded securities that he should not have been able to provide, since they were assets to be used to secure against policyholders' claims.

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