Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome and support the motion. It is now clear that it will be assented to by the majority of Members. The question to be asked is what action will be taken as a result of its passing because, increasingly, we are seeing motions being passed by the House but little or no action thereafter.

The motion is very practical. It speaks to the concerns of business owners the length and breadth of the country. There is one line in it that I want to highlight. It reads: "Calls on the Government to ... legally oblige insurers to provide a breakdown of the premium cost to the business and to provide more information to the business on how premiums are calculated". We do not have transparency in the process on the cost of premiums for individual businesses and small business owners throughout the country. Until such time as we have transparency, all of the rhetoric and the work done for the cost of insurance working group's report will be for naught. We will not have transparency until the Minister tackles that dynamic and is able to see which inherent costs within premiums are to make provision for bad debts and claims against an insurance company and for super-normal profits.

I agree with previous speakers. The insurance industry is acting like a cartel. Insurance companies are not being transparent on the profits they are earning and if they are not being transparent on the profits they are earning, they can charge ordinary people whatever premiums they wish. If there is one entity in the country that seems to be the voice of all of the big guns, the international players which begin with the letter A, for instance, it is Insurance Ireland. In interaction with the finance committee on issues such as the book of quantum, the level and consistency of awards and the high cost of premiums the views of the insurance companies seems to have been articulated through one vehicle - Insurance Ireland. Because we do not see the names and faces, the insurance sector is able to hide behind Insurance Ireland and we still do not have transparency. That is partly the reason insurance premiums are so high. It is because the insurance companies are earning super-normal profits which are in-built in the cost of each and every premium paid throughout the land.

I want to refer specifically to the Minister of State, Deputy Michael D'Arcy's contribution. In speaking about the level and consistency of awards and the book of quantum he stated:

The first is that there should be less reason for cases to go to litigation as the level of awards granted by the courts will be aligned with those provided by PIAB. This in turn should mean a reduction in legal costs. Secondly, a stable claims and awards environment should mean that the reserves put aside by insurers to meet future claims would not have to be regularly adjusted to reflect new developments such as increases in award levels.

We do not know in real terms what reserves insurance companies put aside and until such time as there is that transparency, it is impossible to predict the level and consistency of awards. In other words, it is impossible to predict with certainty that it will result in a decrease in the cost of premiums for individuals and businesses.

There is still a long way to go and, to be fair to the Minister of State who was formerly a member of the finance committee, I do not doubt his bona fides in seeking to take action on the issue, but what we need is a sense of urgency on the part of the Government in an intervention by the State because it seems that the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission has only been tinkering at the edges. It does not appear to have weighed in or been imbued with the resources it needs to fully interrogate insurance companies to see whether they are acting as a cartel. What the Minister of State probably needs to tackle this issue is the resources to attract people from the private sector to organisations such as the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission and pay them commensurate salaries. I refer to forensic accountants and so on who would be able to go in and examine the insurance companies to see what they are doing on the inside. Until such that happens, I fear that we will be back here again in 12 months' time paying lip service to the people in the Visitors Gallery who have been listening to politicians like me talk for a long time about the cost of doing business and who want to see some action being taken at the end of the day. We have the Action Plan for Jobs 2018 which is Government policy but nowhere in it does it speak about the increasing cost of doing business in the domestic sector. We will bend over backwards to help an IDA Ireland backed company coming to Ireland. I say that as a former Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise, Jobs and Innovation. We will do everything for an Enterprise Ireland backed company, but what we now need to do is start to look after the companies, the challenges of which are represented by the motion and which want to see real action being taken now.

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