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

We will get a better idea of what the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach is recommending tomorrow when it publishes its report on its investigation into the cost of motor insurance. The working group that the Government set up during the summer under the Minister for Finance, Deputy Michael Noonan, published its emerging recommendations earlier this week and will publish a report next month setting out the 40 or so actions it intends to implement to reform the motor insurance sector. Legislative changes will be made as a result in areas such as the Injuries Board, the Road Traffic Acts and the Civil Liability and Courts Act. The action taken in 2003 was a response to the particular issue of the impact of road accidents on the cost of insurance generally. We are seeing different factors contributing to the spike in premiums that we have seen in the past 12 months, in particular. We will not be able to go back to the cheap premiums we enjoyed in previous years, but we can make legislative changes and bring additional transparency to how the insurance industry works with the aim of stabilising the current volatility in prices and, as the recommendations work their way through, bringing prices down over time.

See this speech in context