Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We all know the last section. However, people will be somewhat taken aback by the Taoiseach’s comment that we are getting results. Most people are angry when the car insurance bill comes in. It is a serious hit on people's disposable income. When one looks at the scale of the increases over the past four to five years, over 60% from 2012 onwards, these are extraordinary increases. Task forces have done nothing. I recall in the early 2000s when the Personal Injuries Assessment Board was established, it was effective at that time in getting spiralling costs under control.

There seems to have been an acceptance of the insurance industry’s claims around the high cost of awards, etc, without verification. The 2016 Oireachtas committee recommended an integrated insurance database service be completed as a matter of urgency, that it must be independently verified, policed by the Central Bank of Ireland to ensure it is correctly populated, that it becomes an open source of information available to all insurance companies, all brokers and intermediaries, and any foreign insurance companies seeking to enter the Irish insurance market. In other words, there is a sense of a closed shop to new entrants and the lack of competition is an area the Government has not addressed over the past several years. It has been pathetically slow in following through on recommendations made. It has taken the European Commission to wake everybody up in official Ireland with regard to the insurance industry. It has been an incredible and unacceptable rip-off of customers in our society. Who protects the consumer?

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