Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Gabhaim buíochas le mo chomhghleacaí, an Teachta McGrath, as an seans an fhadhb seo a phlé. When one considers that motor insurance for ordinary drivers have risen by 60% since January 2014 and that freight transport and commercial motor costs are up by between 50% and 70%, one can see that it is a major problem in terms of motor insurance which has dragged the country back into the mid- to late 1990s. Action was taken then in terms of the establishment of the Motor Insurance Advisory Board and this is what we need now because during the very early minutes of a three-hour debate, we are hearing a myriad of reasons as to what may be causing this and hearing about a myriad of impacts on different people and sectors across society.

The difficulty with very different reasons is that very different reasons have homes in different Departments and the silo way of doing business will intervene in terms of us finding a solution and a reduction in these costs. For example, there is a difficulty with legal fees in this country. One of the great failures of the previous Government related to the fact that it introduced the Legal Services Regulation Act in December 2011 and rushed it into law in January 2016 on the cusp of a general election with a view to bringing more transparency and reducing legal costs. It took the previous Government five years to do that, and in the meantime, legal fees comprise €50 of an insurance premium.

The level and incidence of motor insurance fraud is incredibly high. According to statistics from the Consumers Association of Ireland, this is a contribution of €56 per premium because there is a lack of enforcement. It comes back to the point raised by Deputy Michael McGrath, namely, that 70% of personal injury claims are settled outside any formal process where they can be assessed and measured against each other and where we can see some sort of transparency as to the kind of awards that are being given. For as long as that continues and we do not have any common level or sense of transparency, the cost of insurance will rise.

I agree with my colleagues in respect of the impact on cars that are perfectly safe according to the State. Again, this relates to another Department, namely, the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport in terms of the national car test, NCT. Insurance companies think they are bigger, better and more important and have more power than the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport so they are telling customers they will not insure them. What good is the NCT if an insurance company does not accept its worth? People coming back from other jurisdictions, be it through immigration or education, find it impossible to get insurance because they are coming from another jurisdiction. In a so-called globalised world, there should be no reason for this. If somebody is a safe driver with a proper driving record with insurance paid in Australia, it should be the same for driving in Ireland, a country whose road network has improved vastly in recent years and where there was a 14% reduction in fatalities on the roads in 2014, yet motor insurance costs are going up by 60%.

The proposal tonight is for the creation of one organisation to which every Department will report and which will be given a deadline to report back and take action so that are no excuses or hiding and we do something in this Dáil to put something back into people's pockets. This is costing jobs. Somebody with a car in rural Ireland does not have an alternative in terms of public transport. If a young person starting off in a job is being hit with €1,500 or €2,000 for their first premium and that job does not pay enough, they will not take that job. This is costing communities opportunities. Deputy Eugene Murphy will give examples he came across. We need action. It has been identified by the National Competitiveness Council as a problem in terms of our competitiveness as an economy. More important, people are being affected by this in their daily working and social lives and in their ability to get around their communities because it is keeping them off the roads and we need to sort it out now.

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