Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to speak on the Insurance (Amendment) Bill 2018 which was published on 19 June. The House is rising this week and nothing has been done about insurance during the tenure of the Minister of State or that of his predecessor or even before that. We promise and promise. We are being robbed left, right and centre. It is extortion. A person cannot go without it. He or she has to have it but when it comes to the fine print, that person has nothing. I am sick and tired of talking about it. A committee was set up and there was a report containing 79 recommendations. It was nothing short of a fudge. It was a total and absolute fudge. Nine actions would be too many. Maybe two or three would be implemented. The Government does not want to do it. There is no appetite in the Government to tackle the cartels. That is the situation across the line because they are all supporting the Government. It is a sad day.

I am old enough to remember when PMPA went into liquidation and the levy that went on and was never taken off. Now we have the issues with Quinn Insurance and Setanta Insurance. Deputy Michael McGrath gave the numbers earlier. He mentioned €800 million. People have been left high and dry. Many thousands are waiting and waiting. They cannot afford to wait. They are not big business people. They are ordinary families trying to eke out a living, educate their children, do their business and stay within the law. The Government is passing more legislation. The public will get a break from it after tomorrow because the Government will be away from here for two months so there will be no more regressive legislation passed. The Bill the Government is passing is demonising and weighing down self-employed people and ordinary families. It is evidence of the Government's failure and ineptitude in dealing with the insurance companies.

I am a small businessman like my colleagues, but I am more involved in the community and voluntary sector and it is being crucified and blackguarded. Many events have been cancelled because of insurance costs. Many wonderful events which were wonderful days for our people, especially in weather such as this, have been cancelled because of insurance costs. Everything is about insurance. There are assessors waiting. That is not to mention car insurance, fleet insurance or lorry insurance.

Why can we not go to Europe or the world market to get insurance? Why are we stuck here with a limited number of companies that can treat us like dirt? If a person rings up an insurance company, he or she has to press button after button because all the offices have been removed. The office of AXA Insurance will leave Clonmel in Tipperary very soon. It is not possible to engage with a person. We had a broker before whom we could deal with but now we are talking to machines and robots and we are told the call is being recorded for training purposes. They want to record everything but it is all one-way traffic. We cannot record what they say. It is just obstacle after obstacle. When the proposals in the Bill are up and running, there will be a 7% levy but 3% of it is tax and 2% goes elsewhere. That is punitive.

Insurance companies are now giving two fingers to the national car test, NCT, system. I have a lot of issues with the Road Safety Authority, RSA, but the NCT is one of the things I agree with. There are people with cars that have valid NCTs and have passed the test but the insurance companies are rejecting them. The driving testers are rejecting them. They are saying there is something wrong with them. What standing does the NCT have if insurance companies and driving testers say a car is not fit even though it passed the NCT the day before?

The haulage industry is being crippled. Last week we heard about the Ponzi fund racket in which people have to keep buying a car every four years and then trade it in. We are trying to bring in legislation on electric cars which Deputy Ryan and the Minister, Deputy Naughten, are championing. They are talking about lowering emissions and lowering toll charges for fully electric cars when we are having all these cars crushed. What about the pollution and CO2 emissions generated by that? Our right hand does not know what our left hand is doing. That is the extent of it.

The attack on ordinary families is merciless and continuing. It should not be allowed to go on. There is an issue for nightclubs. Bar room owners were here recently. They told us insurance has gone up 100%, 200% and 300%. It is like phone book numbers. Then a claim goes in and the minute a claim goes in, an excess is put on the policy. There is excess on the policy anyway but there is a charge then to take account of an impending bad outcome.

The Government has refused steadfastly to tackle that big building down on the quays, the Four Courts, where all the murky business goes on and where all the deals are done. People are dragged along. I have been there many a time myself. People tell their insurance companies that it is a fraudulent claim and they do not want them to pay out. One comes along like a good boy and turns up for several sessions in the High Court only to find out the legal eagles have had a cup of tea together and a chat. It is a "You scratch my back and I'll scratch yours" attitude or one of "You rub soap to my something and I'll rub soap to yours". The Minister of State knows what I am talking about. The attitude is to hell with him, he is only the punter, he will pay anyway because his insurance company is going to pay. It is about the greasy paws of the legal system. The free legal aid racket will not be tackled. It is a revolving door.

The Minister of State will have to tackle the insurance industry. I have no faith in this. We are rising this week and will wait until we come back in September. It will be October before it will be on the agenda again. I have no faith in it. A lot of this is very aspirational. It is about preliminary measures and a general scheme. It is legal jargon obviously done up by the legal adviser for pre-legislative scrutiny. It is giving all the cards to the insurance companies. Let the buyer beware. Let the taxpayer and insurance payer beware. He or she will have to pay anyway.

We have mentioned young people trying to get on the road. Mol an óige agus tiocfaidh siad is a wonderful saying. We are not doing much of it here. We are persecuting them. We did it last week on legislation and the Minister, Deputy Ross, is now proclaiming we were vandals to be opposing legislation and using the filibuster which is one of the oldest traditions in democracies all over the world. That man has gone off the radar and off the Richter scale. He should deal with some of the issues in road transport which the RSA will not deal with. They are flagrantly abusing people. We passed legislation that criminalised people who want to stay within the law but cannot because they cannot get a driving test. Is that fair? It is the same with insurance. They cannot get insurance. The Government would love to tell them all they can get it.

What about the famous leader, St. Leo, the Taoiseach, when he talks about full employment? How will the people in rural Ireland get to the employment? How are they going to go to apprenticeships if they get apprenticeships? How will they go? Will it be by air or kangaroo or something? We need a gluaisteán. We need people to learn how to drive a gluaisteán.

To hell or to Connacht is the attitude of the Government to people in rural Ireland. That is not to mention the people who want to go to the pub for a social drink. We will park that issue. To hell with them. They are consigned to a future of depression and being locked away. Our young people who want to have lives, education and career paths cannot because they have no Luas, DART, bus, bicycle scheme or taxis. The Government is not interested in rural Ireland but rural Ireland will be interested in the Government. I do not know if the Government will get another confidence and supply agreement from the boys here on my right. I do not know if the Government will or not. I do not have much confidence in the Government or Fianna Fáil because they are voting for the same legislation which is regressive towards rural Ireland and especially towards young people. They will be waiting. Most of them are registered to vote.

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