Eugene Murphy (Roscommon-Galway, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I compliment my colleague, Deputy John McGuinness, and the committee on the work they have put into this. I understand and believe the Minister of State is very sincere on this issue and puts a great deal of work into it. It is absolutely necessary that we get most of these recommendations in place without delay.

The best approach for me, to be practical about it, is to give examples. These are examples that have come into my constituency office in respect of Roscommon, Ballinasloe and Strokestown. These are the cases my constituents in Galway Roscommon are bringing to me. A girl of 19 years with no penalty points and no claims has seen her insurance go from €3,500 to €5,100. Another young lady is 18 and a half years old and owns a car purchased by her parents at a cost of €2,800. The car flew through the NCT and has low mileage. Her insurance quotation was €6,500. The Minister of State might recall that one of the first items I dealt with when I entered the Dáil was the difficulty people with wheelchair accessible taxis were having. I had it out with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Ross, about the case of a young man in Carrick-on-Shannon who bought a vehicle and obtained a grant to convert it. Prior to that, he had sought and been given an insurance quote of €4,000. When he went back, lo and behold, he was quoted €12,500. He went ahead with the business and is paying back an enormous sum each month. I was approached by another lady who sought insurance cover for a wheelchair accessible taxi and was refused quotations by nine companies. Among those companies was one which is involved in sponsoring the Special Olympics. What a fraud that is. I use that word. These people give money to sponsor the Special Olympics while refusing cover to a wheelchair accessible taxi.

I am aware of another case of parents who bought an eight year old car in the Dublin region. Coming from Dublin, the Minister of State knows that a Dublin car can have low mileage after eight years. In this case, the mileage was 60,000 km because the can had not been used much by the previous owners, an elderly couple. It was sold for €2,900. The car flew through the NCT. All it needed was a new set of tyres. It was a perfect vehicle yet no company would insure it. This is the latest problem. In recent months, eight, nine and ten year old cars are not being insured. We must look again at the practicalities of this. We have an NCT, which we all agree is a good thing. The NCT is very rigid and one will not get away with much. We all acknowledge that to be good. We then have a situation in which the Irish motor insurance business refuses to insure cars that have been passed by the system and are in excellent working order. A car might be bought by parents for a student in Maynooth or Dublin or Limerick, but that individual cannot get insurance cover. These situations are outrageous and it is getting worse. As colleagues have pointed out, we now find that more and more elderly citizens with impeccable records are being refused cover.

The following really annoys me. We have a good and rigid system of driving tests. Again, that is good. One has to go through ten driving lessons, a theory test and a driving test. Young people go through that but before they ever sit into their own car, they are penalised by the insurance business. Why should one penalise someone who has not committed an offence or received penalty points? All of these matters need to be looked at. We need a root and branch reform of the insurance business. The Minister of State is committed to doing it but it cannot be put off for a year or two. It must be done. In recent weeks, a situation was brought to my attention whereby a lady who was a nurse in a major hospital has packed her bags and gone to Australia because she could not get car insurance at less than €5,000. That is the reality of what the motor insurance business is doing to us.

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