Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to have the opportunity to speak on this very important subject. It affects everybody in the country; it affects costs to businesses and to households, to industry and to the country. To make a brief reference to motor insurance costs, this affects young people to a huge extent. Tragically in many cases, young people do tend to get involved in accidents more than one would like. This very often has tragic consequences for those involved and obvious consequences for the insurance sector. The statistics are there to prove it. I do not know what the answer to that is, other than to try to ensure that whatever regulations need to be improved to deal with that issue are improved as a matter of urgency, because this issue has come up again and again. People under 20 or 21 years of age were always "loaded" in respect of motor insurance. We all understood that. It is a long time since I was in that age group, but despite what people might think, I was in that age group and I can distinctly remember how unfair I felt it was. That applies to the young generation nowadays as well. Even when getting out of the danger age, there was still a reference to it in all insurance quotes, so there is nothing new in that.

Remarks have already been made by a number of speakers to the effect that some insurance companies and banks tend to move in and out of this jurisdiction. That is something we need to be very careful about in the future, because we all have been victims of the insurance companies which tend to move out. The manner in which insurance is made available by such companies needs to be carefully examined by the powers that be in the future to try to ensure that when a company comes into a jurisdiction and decides to do all that is necessary to establish a market head, it does have responsibilities after that and moving away when the going gets tough is not one of them. The public may find themselves penalised as a result and we should also draw attention companies themselves and what their responsibilities are in that. That is just in passing.

The cost of home insurance, particularly in respect of flooding, is an issue that has to be dealt with. We need to deal with it differently. It is far too common now for insurance companies to say to homeowners that because the house was flooded before, either the company will not insure them or if it does, it will cost an arm and a leg. The Minister of State responsible is here now and I think he accepts that when drainage or flood alleviation is required, we need to get ahead of it. We need to do it beforehand rather than afterwards. Then we will not have so many visitations to the same spot over and over again. As I have often said in the past, there is no part of the country that cannot be drained if we have the will to do it. It is a matter of deciding whether we are going to do that or whether we are going to let the flood waters spread all over the country, which is what some people think we should do but it is not a good idea to my mind. There was a guy called Archimedes, who lived well before my time, and even before the time of the Acting Chair. He perfected this whole idea of drainage to such an extent that he made many things possible that were seen before to be impossible. Unfortunately, in the years since then, we have drifted back to thinking we cannot do anything and as a result of not being able to do whatever it is that we should have done, we increase insurance costs and make it difficult for people to live in certain areas.

Incidentally, and people do not really know this, the local authorities have actually encouraged people to build in low-lying areas in rural locations, to "countersink" the dwelling on the landscape. I do not know where that came from but I have an idea it has something to do with the visual impact on the scenery. That is fine, but if one lowers the level of a house sufficiently, the water will flow in. It does not matter where it is; that is a fact of life. Somebody should press the button that sets off the alarm bells and try to ensure that does not happen in future.

Reference has been made to medical insurance costs by previous speakers, including my constituency colleague. Health insurance is gradually creeping up and there are all kinds of reasons for this. Increasing awards are given as a result of the increases, but the whole concept of community rating was originally intended to ensure the insurance impact was spread across the insurance industry and to prevent cherry-picking.

A certain amount of cherry-picking is taking place at present and it is time to put an end to it. Let us call a spade a spade. It should not be happening. It is not supposed to happen. It is in breach of the law. The regulations are there and we should deal with it.

Medical negligence costs are on the increase as well. Some people say we are well placed in comparison with other countries. The United States is probably the leading example of where almost every case is challengeable and is challenged regularly. That is contributing heavily to insurance costs and we are heading in that direction here as well. Everybody pays, not only one sector.

I want to finish on one element that has come to my attention and to everybody else's attention as well over the years. It is the question of various insurance policies that have been sold to people on the basis that they are likely to have a grand little pot of gold at the end of the day, maybe €100,000 or €150,000 depending on what they pay into it and so on and so forth. It used to be a benefit related insurance but in many cases it has now turned into a contribution related benefit, for want of a better description, in which case the insured person will be given a minimum amount of €25,000 or €30,000 out of a €100,000 premium and the remainder will be paid to them on an annual basis - a minimum amount of €170 or €180 a month for the next 20 years or so, if they live that long and provided they can show they have a private pension of more than €12,700. I do not know who thought up that idea in the first place but it was not the insured. It was not somebody who contributed to an insurance policy for a period of 18 or 20 years in the hope that they were going to get some benefit from it afterwards. What really infuriates me is when one tries to intercede on behalf of the people who are thus affected, one is told that they must prove they have independent means. If one had independent means, one would not need an insurance policy at all. The reality is that if one had the €12,700 or whatever is required independently and separately - in the bank or whatever the case may be - one would not be asking for this at all in the first place. I congratulate the insurer who came up with the idea. It is a brilliant one because it is "heads I win, tails you lose" in so far as the insured is concerned. I ask that the Minister of State relate that to the relevant section in the Department because it has been a bone of contention for many years and it is one with which we have all had to deal over recent years and as time goes on to a greater extent.

I am not a contributor to any of these policies just in case anybody is looking at me suspiciously. I am not a contributor to any of these particular policies and I would not join them in a fit. I advise everyone else not to join them either. Unfortunately, a great number of our constituents have and have paid the price and suffered the anxiety, stress and trauma of having a considerable pot of money that is effectively theirs sitting in a pension fund somewhere that they cannot access unless they live to about 90.

They are just a few of the things that come to my attention and have come to my attention over a long number of years. I used to be a spokesman in this particular area years ago and the same things applied then. Nothing has changed. I can assure everybody that nothing has changed in the intervening period but one would hope that things will change as a result of the debate we are having now.

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