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

I thank everyone for their contributions. I took notes and would like to touch on everyone's contribution, if I may, in the time that I have available to me. The Chairman of the Oireachtas committee commented on the deadlines and how we drive the implementation of this report. As I said in the committee today, we have to be realistic about the timelines in terms of certain actions that require public consultation if we are amending legislation or the building of a database and how long it will take. I put in timelines that reflect the time it might take but I have also stated that we will do it more quickly where we can. The House will start to see that in some of the updates that we provided to the committee in terms of the transparent reporting we want to do.

I spoke to the Central Statistics Office, CSO, about whether it would host a national claims information database instead of the Central Bank. If I am correct in my memory, its view at the time was that the type of information database that we were talking about would not be appropriate for it, which is why we went for the Central Bank in the end. A different type of claim-by-claim registering mechanism would be appropriate for the CSO but, as I mentioned in the committee, the time and cost involved would be unknown and I did not want to put something that could take five years and cost billions into the report. Therefore, we have gone with a national claims information database, which we think will be sufficient, to be hosted by the Central Bank. Certainly, regarding Setanta, it is essential. Unlike other contributions, I think this is playing upon the fears of insurance companies in terms of their reserving practices and work is being done at the moment to try to bring certainty in relation to the failure of an insurance company in the future.

The issue of introducing legal fees at the Personal Injuries Assessment Board was raised. Legal fees are there for a small portion of cases depending on the circumstances. We debated it at length earlier on and I take the Deputy's point. My view is that it could be inflationary in the short term without actually delivering the successes we might want to see. As I am quite focused on the short term and how we can help the situation for drivers in the next two years, we have not gone down that path.

I concur with the Deputy that section 30 must be commenced. This is set out in the report, as is action on the court jurisdictional limits. I will return to the importance the Deputy places on transparency because unlike the contribution made by the previous speaker before leaving the Chamber, this is incredibly important in terms of understanding what exactly is happening here and protecting consumers in light of concerns that the industry could take a dominant position in the relationship. The Deputy is right to focus on that issue.

I thank Deputy Troy for his comments. While I am aware that the problem did not spring up overnight, the troubling spike in premiums has only occurred in the past 12 or 14 months. The Minister for Finance was aware that problems were coming in the area of insurance and moved to examine the compensation framework for insurance first for this reason. We then examined flood insurance because of what happened last winter. That work was completed in June and in July I was appointed as chair of the working group to examine non-life insurance. We prioritised motor insurance because of the impact it is happening throughout the country.

The Deputy spoke of too many further reviews being done. The report speaks about actions such as establishing a national claims information database, a fraud database and an uninsured driver database, introducing new legislation and setting up a personal injuries commission. These are actions. Other areas must also be examined, for example, we must look at the models in place in Canada, Australia and New Zealand and do further work on international benchmarking. We are taking action by setting up new databases, introducing new legislation and establishing commissions. We will reform the insurance sector, which is the issue to which the report speaks.

On timelines, we cannot do everything at once. This means we must prioritise some actions over others and be realistic.

Deputy Troy is correct that there has not been a significant increase in the pay-out on claims in recent years. This is referred to in the report. However, there has been a major increase in reserving as a result of the uncertainty the insurance companies project in the future. Claims are not settled immediately and take a number of years to process. As changes are introduced, the amount of money companies must reserve also changes. For this reason, we must be careful in this regard. Deputy Pearse Doherty spoke about making changes quickly. If we can make changes quickly, they can be reversed again very quickly. How can we expect companies to operate in an environment in which they do not have certainty as to what exactly the market will be for them in the years ahead?

There will be three reporting periods for the personal injuries commission. As such, we will not wait until the commission concludes its work to find out its conclusions. Different reporting periods have been provided for in the terms of reference set out in the report.

International benchmarking cannot be done overnight. We cannot simply find out what the amount of claims is in another jurisdiction. We must ascertain precisely how other systems work, for example, what level of taxation applies, what is the population size, and how the social insurance system and health system operates. All these areas must be considered in terms of how a court may determine an award to be paid.

On freedom of establishment and freedom of services, EU legislation means this cannot be done on the same terms. The Central Bank scrutinises the businesses in question in respect of conduct of business. However, it can only consider factors such as authorisation and prudential work if it has established there. There is, therefore, a difference in this respect. From discussions with the Central Bank, I am aware that it is doing more work in terms of co-operation with other jurisdictions, for example, Malta, to ensure it is fully aware of what is happening in so far as it is monitoring and regulating insurance companies in its jurisdiction that are offering business in other areas.

Deputy Boyd Barrett stated the report did nothing and would not impact on premiums. I am not sure on what basis he made that statement.

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