Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This issue highlights the battle with the insurance industry. This is something that should be have been dealt with and should never have had to emerge in a report. That report has been in existence for two and a half years. This is about transparency. We will have the industry representatives before us again. One would swear butter would not melt in their mouths when they are sitting across from us at the committee, where they are all about transparency and are consumer-centric and all the rest. We have seen the cut of them. We have seen how they fought the Minister of State in this regard for the past two and a half years. The legislation I introduced passed Second Stage two years ago. I had a commitment from the person who was in the Minister of State's position previously that it would go through the committee in a matter of months. However, despite being designed to give consumers more rights vis-à-visthe insurance industry, the Bill has been stalled for two years due to the requirement for a money message from Government. That said, I am glad the Minister of State is going to use this legislation as a vehicle to deal with the issue. I was somewhat concerned when the Department put the legislation out for consultation last week, with a six-month window for said consultation.

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