John Brassil (Kerry, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this issue. I commend my colleague, Deputy Kelleher, on once again highlighting it, as well as Deputy Michael McGrath, who has been working on this topic for many years.

A consistent question I am asked in constituency clinics and when I meet the people of Kerry is: "Why are insurance costs so high?" They find the costs very difficult to comprehend. They also ask why we, as legislators, cannot do something about it. There is an onus on us, once and for all, to do something about the spiralling insurance costs that are crippling many businesses.

I attended a briefing given by the Alliance for Insurance Reform in the audiovisual room a few months ago. More than 20 different industry groups were represented, including hoteliers, the car rental sector, the Construction Industry Federation, the Galway City Business Association and so on. A person attending that briefing who, I believe, was from a Galway fast-food chain showed a video of an individual setting himself up for a false insurance claim. He went into the washroom area of one of the facilities, threw water on the floor, broke up his mobile phone, put water on himself and then went out and claimed he had fallen and broken his phone, and looked for €500. Thankfully, the owner has closed circuit television, CCTV, footage of the incident and that cleared him. He brought the footage to the Garda but decided not to proceed because of what it would cost him to bring the individual to court and the almost inevitable outcome of the individual being given a warning or a fine which would not deter him from carrying out such fraud.

Legislation is needed to make sure that false insurance claims are adequately dealt with. The enactment of this legislation would go a long way towards achieving that. We also need to examine closely the compensation levels that are paid in Ireland. Why are we paying up to four times more than our UK counterparts for minor injuries such as whiplash? I believe the very high compensation levels that are available in this country are attracting people inclined to engage in fraud and something needs to be done about that also.

I believe there is a willingness in the House, once and for all, to tackle this scourge. The business people, homeowners and law-abiding citizens of this country deserve fair insurance rates. By introducing this measure, it will be one element of reforming the industry that we all need but unfortunately few of us can now afford.

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