Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Rural Independent Group for tabling this motion and I welcome the opportunity to contribute on it. I am supportive of amendment No. 2 in the name of my colleague, Deputy Michael McGrath.

This is my third time to discuss insurance in the House. The first time, I spoke about business owners. The second time, I spoke about returning emigrants. Tonight, I will focus on Irish cover bands. Recommendation No. 9 reads, "Forum to be established by Insurance Ireland for consumer and business issues". Under the various quarterly reports, I note that the forum has been meeting and is due to meet again in the second quarter of this year. I would like the forum to engage with the music industry because it has encountered a major anomaly, in that it is finding it difficult to get insurance that includes open drive. This difficulty is detrimental for health and safety reasons. A friend of mine, Mr. Mark O'Reilly, from Hot Fuss explained to me in Portumna that, if he had to do a gig in Monaghan, Derry or Cork at the very bottom of the country, his policy did not allow for open drive and that many of his colleagues in the industry were experiencing the same. If it takes four hours to travel down to Cork and he must play a gig, then hop back in and drive back, he will have been on the go for 12 or 14 hours. That is not good for health and safety reasons.

At the next quarterly meeting when the forum is supposed to invite in other industries under recommendation No. 9, will the Minister of State consider inviting Irish cover bands? I would appreciate it.

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