Michael Healy-Rae (Kerry, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not tell lies. I am very factual about everything. I do not blame the insurance companies. I am blaming them for not challenging and not fighting back. We are up against people who are criminals. Any person who pretends to fall in a hotel or a nightclub and feign an injury is a criminal. It is thievery of the worst type. A person who has a small bump in the back of the car will be giving out and moaning that he or she has this pain and that pain and cannot work for three years. A good shoe up the backside is what they want. There is nothing wrong with them.

At the same time I want to be respectful of people who are seriously injured. Every one of us has known people. I refer to children who have been hurt in car accidents and by wandering into some place they should not be. If there is negligence, of course these people should be paid and well paid. That is what we all pay insurance for. We pay so we are covered if someone has a serious injury. If they are hurt we want them to be paid. We want them to be compensated. However, these bogus people have to be cut out.

Only last week our group met with people from the entertainment industry and publicans who put on venues. They are crippled with insurance premiums. These are respectable people carrying on a business. All of a sudden some night some person trips down a stairs and a family member a couple of nights later thinks it is a great idea to fall down the same step. Is that not a great coincidence? I refer to our local authorities. We seem to have people who have homing devices in that they are able to walk around our streets and find a hole on a footpath or something that is wrong. All of a sudden they have the misfortune of falling into it.

Is it not amazing they find this hole and trip and fall and get hurt and go to the same solicitor and the same consultant and get the same result which equals tens of thousands of euro? We have to pay. It is thievery and robbery and we have to expose it for what it is. I refer to any way we collectively, the Opposition side, the Government side, can work together. We have to ask our insurance companies to take on a challenging role against these fraudulent claims. That will result in a downturn in the cost of premiums we are being charged.

See this speech in context