Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I do not want to get ahead of the potential recommendations of the working group, but we are looking at the operations in other jurisdictions and different models that are happening in Canada, New Zealand and Australia. We are also looking at new ideas like peer-to-peer insurance. We are looking at everything and I am not going to pre-judge the outcome of what we are doing. Setting up a State insurance company would take time and we need to look at the current problems, as the Deputy pointed out in his question. We need urgent action on that and are looking at short, medium and longer-term solutions.

We have not finished our work yet but I will give the Deputy an idea of some of my thinking on a State insurance company or even a State insurance model with no private actors. Establishing a State insurance company would not lead to any reform in the market. It might reward bad behaviour that is already in the market. What we would see then is people who are already withdrawing out of riskier parts of the market withdrawing further, leading to an increased cost for the State and expediting that problem. The State would face the same problems that are already there in relation to provisioning and concerns about uncertainty around the cost of claims. Those problems would not go away with a State insurance company. We have to ask who would pay the difference between the market price and the discounted rate being given by the Government. Where would that money come from? Would it come from the taxpayer again? I do not think we can put any more of a burden on them. However, we are looking at other jurisdictions and I am keeping an open mind as to what might come from our investigations into those areas by the relevant sub-group that is doing that work.

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