Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the legislation and I commend Senator Ó Céidigh and the other Senators for bringing it forward. The truth is that perjury is something we have had in our society for a long time. As Deputy O'Callaghan mentioned, if we go right back to the 1700s, we find it on the Statute Book. It is interesting that one of the big things people had in their lives, certainly among the older generations, was that when they swore on the Bible, they took that as meaning they had to tell the truth. That was a very powerful thing in a society that was devout in a religious sense. People were very much of the view that they would not break that oath when they took it and it was seen as being even more than a mortal sin to commit the act of perjury. It is in that context that we found perjury did not reach into the legal sphere as much as it would have under normal circumstances.

We are in a different age now, for better or for worse, and the act of perjury is something we see happening at a more accelerated rate in our society. In many of the commentaries we see in newspapers and throughout the media, we see cases reported on which are thrown out of court where it is clear untruths are being told to the court and those doing that seem to suffer no repercussions. It would be welcome if legislation of this nature were to be a deterrent for people who would chance their arm and go into court on the basis of what have they to lose. That type of attitude is what has got us into huge difficulty in the past and this legislation will, hopefully, bring us to a situation where less of it happens in the future.

The Bill, as the Minister outlined, goes into some detail as to how this can operate. However, we need to ensure there are safeguards in place. We all know of situations where a person has a genuine injury yet what the consequences of that may be is somewhat open to interpretation. We would not want a situation where legislation of this nature were to be too onerous in that context.

Where we are in agreement is on cases in which people make fraudulent claims and set themselves up to make a killing without any due process or proper basis for that claim to be brought forward.

The Senators have done a great deal of work and a great service to the State by bringing this Bill forward. In fairness to the Government, it is welcome that it has accepted the Bill and is moving it forward so quickly. As was said earlier, there are now a number of items of legislation going through the Houses. I hope they will have an effect on the whole area of insurance and the way in which it is being used and abused throughout the State.

It is important to acknowledge that the number of people who engage in fraudulent or exaggerated claims is very small. We must also recognise and be conscious of the fact that the insurance industry itself uses these sometimes exaggerated claims as a reason for having such high premiums. My colleague, Deputy Pearse Doherty, in an exchange in a finance committee meeting exposed some of this. The insurance companies were claiming that up to 20% of claims were fraudulent. However, when they were pressed as to how many of these fraudulent claims they had reported to An Garda Síochána, there was practically none. It is very easy to throw numbers out but it is important to back them up. We must also be conscious of that. It would be very cavalier of us to put the idea out into the public domain that somehow or other fraudulent claims are causing the problem. The problem in our insurance industry is very much the greed of a small cohort of it.

This is not to say that the issue of perjury does not need to be dealt with appropriately. This legislation does that. We see ongoing issues in this regard, not just from the point of view of insurance but in many other cases. All of us are contacted by people who are very much at the end of their tether in that they either have been falsely accused or find that certain situations have developed in their lives such that they cannot find recourse to justice. At the core of this is something that has been done in a very vexatious or sinister way to destroy these people's lives. We see this sometimes in family disputes and at other times in disputes among neighbours and so on. If sound legislation is in place and these processes can be brought to a court, it may be a relief to a person found to have committed an act of perjury.

The advance of this Bill as quickly as possible through these Houses in the time we have left would be a very welcome development. I again commend the Bill. Senator Ó Céidigh is here with us and I congratulate him in particular and all the other Senators on the work they have done. I also congratulate the Minister on embracing the Bill and bringing it this far. I know he will have the support of everyone in the House to make this law as quickly as possible. It would be a welcome advancement.

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