Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I will follow up on the comments of my colleague, Deputy Martin Kenny. I welcome the motion. I thank the Regional Group. This legislation is one of the pieces of the jigsaw that we need to deal with the whole insurance fiasco we have in this State. I accept what others have said. If somebody goes before a court and perjures himself or herself, whether in respect of a false claim or claiming an injury to be worse than it is or whether it relates to something that can be incredibly hurtful or painful to somebody, that needs to be seen as a crime and action needs to be taken. I also welcome what the Minister for Justice and Equality said about increasing the powers of the Garda in dealing with such types of fraud. That is absolutely required.

We have been talking about the insurance problem in this State for a considerable amount of time.

Deputy Pearse Doherty made the point about the dysfunction in the motor insurance industry. A major tenet of what he said was that there were false and exaggerated claims but that the motor insurance industry was able to play on these from the point of view of jacking up people's premiums. This is where we need Government action, accountability and oversight. We also need to see Deputy Doherty's Consumer Insurance Contracts Bill 2017 enacted as soon as possible. It is a failing on the part of the Government that it has not already done that.

A number of solutions have been proposed in relation to dealing with the book of quantum. The Judicial Council got off to a rocky enough start, so we are not sure where that goes. I had conversations with the former Deputy, Gerry Adams, and with the former Minister of State, Senator Michael D'Arcy, who seemed to be on top of his brief and was looking at possible solutions in this regard and at the possible necessity for constitutional change.

There are two things here. There is the fact that there are exaggerated claims and the fact that this is sometimes used by the industry. There are also sectors where we have absolute dysfunction. I refer to the leisure and entertainment industry and to the community sector, which is about to get absolutely hammered. In my town of Dundalk, in the past fortnight I have been dealing with the case of Muirhevnamor community centre, a community facility that has done fine work in the recent period and through its long history in an area that suffers from severe disadvantage. Community facilities like this do brilliant work but this facility was charged around €3,000 for insurance two years ago. It then went up to around €6,000 and this year it was told it could not be insured. Initially, it was because it made use of bouncy castles, which are necessary for children's parties and so on. When it removed these, it still could not get cover. I commend the work of Ms Mandy Fee of Pelican Promotions, who we have worked with for a considerable amount of time and who met the then Minister of State, Senator Michael D'Arcy, in relation to the Irish Leisure Industry Standards Association, ILISA, and self-regulation within the leisure and entertainment industry, particularly companies which have bouncy castles. It is an idea that has huge merit. Ms Fee has built a good relationship with insurance companies and underwriters. Due to that, we were able to get a really good quote for Muirhevnamor community centre. If it were not for that relationship and that work, we were in disaster territory.

From speaking to those involved, the information coming back is that this will move beyond community centres, the community sector, the leisure and entertainment industry and into all facets of our society. Underwriters in Britain are, at this point, very slow to quote for anything that exists in this State. That is due to fear of the big claims, of somebody going to court and obtaining a huge payout. I accept the necessity of this where people are genuinely injured or have genuine problems and insurance exists to cover for such problems but we have absolute dysfunction.

The way we live our lives and the society we have is threatened by the straitened circumstances that community facilities and community resources, such as this community centre one in Muirhevnamor, are facing due to the pandemic and consequent reduction in moneys coming in. We all knew about the insurance problem but it is going from being an insurance problem to a no-insurance problem. In that eventuality, we need to ensure we have facilities where our kids can go for sports training or other activities, and where their parents can go for yoga, dancing and so forth. People need breaks. We know the damage done in the past while in relation to mental health and the lack of mental health services so we need to ensure these facilities are available to us.

I call on the Minister, Deputy McEntee, to speak to her colleagues. I will have a follow-up meeting. I have already had initial conversations with the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, in relation to moving on some of these parts. We can speak of ILISA, of the possibility of regulation within the industry, of block-buying of insurance for sectoral groups and so forth but we also need the Government to take action, to take the insurance groups to task and to ensure we have the legislative back-up and other requirements to ensure companies, community groups and community facilities can get insurance and we can go about living our lives the way we have done over the past while. Otherwise, we will not only impact on businesses and put people out of work, but we will also reduce the opportunities we have to carry out the extra-curricular activities we all engage in. This will impact on sports clubs and sports groups, including GAA, karate and other martial arts clubs, boxing, and so on. They will all be impacted. We need to ensure we have solutions as quickly as possible.

The other problem is that it is moving into other sectors and will eventually impact on retail and other areas we see as low risk. This pandemic in insurance is spreading throughout the entire industry and will impact on every sector. We need to ensure it is arrested as soon as possible and that solutions, such as that found by Ms Mandy Fee and Pelican Promotions in regard to ILISA, are taken up by Government and supported and that the action required is taken by Government to deal with high payouts and enacting all necessary legislation.

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