John Curran (Dublin Mid West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment the work of Deputy John McGuinness and his committee in producing this report which was published in November. There is commonality with a report produced by our own party early last year and one from January this year on how we might address issues such as the lack of transparency of data. There are also a lot of concerns about implementation.

Deputy Robert Troy gave some figures. He said there had been an increase of 11.6% in the cost of motor insurance in 2014, that in 2015 there had been a further increase of 30.8% and that, in the 12 months to August 2016, there had been an increase of 28%. In his opening comments the Minister of State said the objective of the working group was to identify and examine the drivers of the cost of insurance, with a particular focus on motor insurance, and to recommend short, medium and longer term measures to address the issue of increasing insurance costs. That is not enough. The historical increases have been too large and we need a reduction in insurance premiums, not just a levelling out. They have reached an unsustainably high level in the past two or three years and the success of the action plan will be measured by a reduction in premiums.

There was a lot of talk about data. I have given figures for the rates of increase, but other things happen which are not captured by data, in particular the number of people who fail to get quotes from motor insurers, particularly on older cars, even if they have passed the NCT test.

I wish the Minister of State well in the implementation of his report, but that is not my main concern. I have two concerns. First, I want the key recommendations made in the report which contains 33 recommendations and recommends 70 actions to be identified and the potential savings and reductions given. The Minister of State did this when talking about establishing the database when he said some €50 million or €60 million had been paid out for uninsured drivers, the equivalent of €30 in a premium. There is frustration among the public who are finding it very difficult to cope. A number of things can have more of an impact than others, although I am not saying they should not all be implemented. The Minister of State should consider which actions have the greatest potential for savings on premiums and which could be fast-tracked. He spoke about extending the period of the notice of renewal from 15 to 20 working days but the second quarter of 2018 seems to be an awfully long time to wait.

I am concerned about the drift in timelines and some of the targets are for the production of further reports, meaning that the impact on premiums is some way down the road. I wish the Minister of State well and hope his colleagues will row in behind him because he needs to drive this. In May 2016 I asked a question of the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. He replied:

My Department has been pursuing for some time​ the establishment of a properly functioning motor insurance database with the insurance industry here to show who is insured and who is not. Such a database would facilitate enforcement by An Garda Síochána, and could make a significant contribution towards reducing the level of uninsured driving in Ireland.

In September 2016 I followed up on the issue. The reply on that occasion was:

Further discussions have taken place with the insurance industry during 2016 regarding the database, most recently a meeting between my Department, An Garda Síochána, the Department of Justice and Equality and the Department of Finance with Insurance Ireland and the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland on Wednesday, 14 September 2016, with a further meeting planned for later this month.  My Department understands from discussion with the industry that the industry hopes to have the database ready for use by An Garda Síochána, my Department and the Motor Insurers' Bureau of Ireland early in 2017.

In early 2017 I asked the Minister how he was getting on with his database. He reply was:

The establishment of the database is a complex piece of work, requiring the insurance industry to gather certain information from its customers which many currently do not have, and requiring IT changes to datafields and to policy documents.  Until the design and project plan have been agreed, proposed dates for the database to become fully operational are obviously going to be tentative, but the insurance industry is optimistic that an initial phase of the database will be available for testing by end September 2017.

The drift of the policy is my concern, not the Minister's integrity or the plan. He needs his colleagues to row in behind him to support the active implementation of the plan in a timely fashion.

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