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

I thank Deputies for their contributions to the debate. I thank Deputy Michael McGrath for tabling the motion and thereby giving Deputies the opportunity to highlight the examples being raised with them by their constituents every day. I thank the Deputies who helped us to gather information when we were putting together our report in the second half of last year. The Government will oppose the motion not because we do not understand the genuine concerns of constituents but because the motion suggests nothing is being done. That is unfair, given the amount of work that has been happening across many Departments for quite some time. As an elected representative, I receive emails just like every other Deputy. Ever since I took on this role, I have been receiving emails from all over the country. We know that something needs to be done in this regard and that is exactly what we are trying to do.

Deputy Frank O'Rourke spoke about the data received from the CSO. We discussed this issue recently in the Dáil Chamber. The statistics are relevant and we have to pay attention to them. In the past five months we have seen no increase in motor insurance premiums. In the past year we have seen a decrease, but that is not to suggest people are not still experiencing increases in their insurance premiums. We know that they are. Equally, I am not suggesting there is a direct correlation between the publication of the report earlier this year and the reforms under way as a result and the stabilisation in the insurance market. As a result of the work done in the past 12 months by Deputies Michael McGrath, Pearse Doherty and Seán Sherlock and their party colleagues - by all Members of this House, together with the Government - to draw attention to this issue, to find out exactly why this had come to pass and to set out a roadmap for the reforms to be introduced and as a result of the clarity being driven by that work, there is an understanding among the public at large, within the industry and among the vested interests in this area that change needs to happen. It is clear from the reforms we are seeing that welcome change is happening. I accept Deputy Michael McGrath's point that we do not have the data we need for employer's liability and public liability insurance. That is something we need to fix.

Co-operation is very important in dealing with this issue which, as we all know, is complex. It is recognised in the Oireachtas committee's report and ours that there is no single silver bullet that will fix the problem. We know that it cannot be solved overnight. However, there is a comprehensive suite of reforms that can be actioned. It is important to emphasise that we cannot give false hope to our constituents when they contact us by saying we are going to fix it immediately. That would not be a responsible approach to this complex issue. As Deputy Danny Healy-Rae pointed out, we need competition in the market. We need a stable, properly functioning and competitive market if we are to drive down prices and ensure people in areas of business where they cannot get cover will be able to get it in the future. It is important to bear that in mind as we work to address this issue. While the clarity and sense of purpose we have shown in working together have been helpful, we risk undermining them if we are not careful in how we work together into the future as we implement these reforms.

I dispute Deputy Dara Calleary's suggestion there has been a lack of urgency on the part of the Government. Last year, when we set up the working group and began working on our reforms, we had subgroups meeting every week across the Government to look at the different areas that needed to be reformed. When people were dissatisfied because our report was not due until December, we made a commitment to bring forward emerging recommendations by the end of October to help to inform the Oireachtas committee's report. We met that commitment. When we committed to quarterly reporting beginning later this year, the Taoiseach and the Oireachtas committee asked us to bring it forward and we did. Prior to that, we produced an interim report before our quarterly report in order that when I appeared before the Oireachtas committee, as I did on a number of occasions, it had as much information as I had. This facilitated a proper and constructive debate on these matters and enabled the committee to hold me to account in line with my role as the Minister of State with responsibility for this area. We have brought transparency to the process in the way we have built the report. We have set out clear timelines. We have said which party will be responsible for implementing the various elements and actions mentioned in the report. Where there are delays - I will come to them - we have signalled them. Rather than saying "we will do this in a year" and then apologising a year later when it was not achieved and saying "we will do it soon", we have said quarter by quarter what steps will be taken. We have put in place a traffic light reporting system to enable people to see in advance where delays might happen and allow us to work on fixing them.

I ask the Deputies who have claimed that work is not being done to look at the detail in the first quarterly report which states what is happening on each of the 33 recommendations. The report we published in January set out 71 actions, 40 of which are to be completed this year. That means that most of the recommendations will be acted on this year. Ten actions were due for completion in the first quarterly report, but there have been delays in three areas. We are working to address these delays, one of which will be fixed imminently, while work to fix the other two is ongoing. We hope to address them before the end of the second quarter. The Personal Injuries Commission which has been mentioned by a number of Deputies as one of the most important areas in the first quarterly report is already up and running and doing good and important work. Good progress is being made with the national claims information database, another key element of our efforts to have transparency on what exactly is happening in the claims and insurance market. We can take comfort from it.

I have been asked to speed up our work in areas such as the uninsured database. We have to be very careful in that regard. The last time an effort was made to implement an uninsured database, it failed because it is not easy to get the right data into the right system and make them easily accessible to An Garda Síochána. While we see the urgency in doing this, we have to proceed with caution to make sure we get it right and do not make a mistake that will ultimately make the system fatally flawed. If we cause this proposal to be put back on the shelf, we might end up three years down the line with nothing to show for our endeavours.

It has been suggested we have moved too slowly in the past year. I have spoken about the urgency I have attached to incremental reporting on the work we have been doing. It is important to recognise that we produced our report a few weeks after the Oireachtas committee had produced its report. We had to do an added piece of work - we had to include an action plan with timelines to identify the responsible actors and get buy-in from them. That is the responsibility of the Government. We have done that. I remind those who have said this should be done more quickly that we have prepared a detailed report which runs to over 100 pages and that we have done serious work on the timelines. We recognise that work needs to be done in a number of areas at the same time. I ask Deputies not to say we should do this more quickly. As we have laid out in our report, we have had to resolve detailed issues in addressing the national claims information database. How could we have done it more quickly? I remind the House that other work needs to be done by the actors involved, including the Central Bank, across their various priority areas. It is important that we make constructive contributions when we are talking about doing things more quickly. Those who want things to be done more quickly are proposing in the motion before the House that more burdens be added to our work in new areas. We have to recognise that significant resources are being invested across government to get this work done.

We began our work on employer's and public liability insurance which is incredibly important at the start of this year. It is important to recognise that a number of the reforms in the motor insurance area, such as those relating to the claims awards being made in the courts, are already being worked on by the Personal Injuries Commission and will feed into the reforms on employer's and public liability insurance. I have been consulting stakeholders in this area, including hoteliers. Deputy Tom Neville and others have brought detailed concrete information from their constituencies to help us to gain a proper understanding of this area. We have consulted hoteliers, IBEC, ISME, RGDATA, Chambers Ireland and the Health and Safety Authority. We have also received submissions from the IFA. We are, therefore, aware of the complicated issues in this area. I am worried about the increases in the excess figure being taken on by individual businesses. I am very worried about the trend towards self-insurance. I know that some businesses are withdrawing from particular parts of their activities. For example, a hotel might take out a disco from its offering because it cannot afford the insurance. This undermines the total offering of such businesses.

We have received great information from businesses on what they believe is happening in respect of fraudulent claims and are trying to get harder data. As we seek proper solutions in this area, we are going to encounter some serious constitutional issues in areas such as the Statute of Limitations and the burden of proof that has to be put on a business if it is to be possible for it to successfully defend a claim against it. If a claim is made at the very end of the Statute of Limitations period of two years, a business might not have the necessary CCTV footage to hand, or it might not be able to contact its former employees who dealt with the issue at the time. We have to try to address these issues, but it will not be easy. It would not be responsible for me to say we will be able to get on top of the employer's and public liability aspects of this issue in the morning. Constitutional issues require serious consultation across the House in conjunction with the Attorney General. We are potentially looking at trying to get difficult legislation through the House. We need to make sure businesses can avail of more competition in the market. We know that people are moving out of particular areas in a way that is fundamentally undermining the operation of their businesses into the future.

The practice of insurance companies using non-disclosure where it would have no bearing on a decision by an insurer to price cover at a particular level is raised in the motion. I agree that it is unacceptable for it to be used as the sole purpose for avoiding payment. Deputy Pearse Doherty has proposed some very constructive legislation in this area. We want to work on it, but it is a resource issue. We need to get to it at the right time in the committee in order that we can deal with it in an effective manner and see it through.

Regarding the timelines within which we hope to report on the next phase of employer's and public liability insurance cost reforms, I want to provide as much clarity as I can, but we are reviewing what we hope to do. The intention at the beginning of the year was to have an addendum to the motor insurance report because so many issues crossed from the area of motor insurance into employer's and public liability insurance. I have had an addendum published to the existing report, but increasingly as we work on the issue of employer's and public liability insurance, we see further areas in the motor insurance sector on which we want to update data. It might be the case that in September this year we will bring forward a more comprehensive report with new parts on employer's and public liability insurance. Because I anticipate some significant legal and constitutional issues in the near term, I hope in July to give a very clear indication of the direction I would like to take and go to the Oireachtas committee to get its support in order that we can go about addressing these issues as quickly as we can.

Deputy Lisa Chambers has spoken about the fact that her motor insurance premium is more expensive now than when she started to drive ten years ago. We must recognise that in the early 2000s premiums were unsustainably low. It was a failure of the business model at the time and we are now dealing with its correction. We need to move away from these super cycles in which insurance cover is priced too low and then too high. That is part of the work we are doing. Good work has already been done in that regard when we consider the solvency II related legislation.

I will shortly be appearing before the Oireachtas committee when I would like to go into more detail on the issues raised in the quarterly report and return to some of the questions raised in this debate.

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