Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Ceann Comhairle is right. I am sharing time with Deputy Fitzmaurice. This legislation was first brought forward in December 2019. The Government was accepting it and pushing it forward at that stage. The Regional Group has found a good way to bring this legislation forward again and at least now the group will be associated with it. The Government will bring the legislation forward in this way and it will be enacted. Unfortunately, I think this is now the only way that Opposition groups will get to put forward legislation. The days of the last Government when legislation could be put forward and passed by Opposition Deputies are long gone now.

A ten-year jail sentence and a fine of up to €100,000 will probably deter people from committing perjury. This Bill concerns the insurance industry, but we know that many other groups have also perjured themselves and are on the record as having done, including gardaí, business people and State employees. When this Bill is passed and the law enacted, I hope that it will be used to deter everybody from committing perjury and used to investigate everybody suspected of having done so, whether in court, in tribunals or in commissions of investigation.

The creation of a specific criminal offence of perjury has been hailed as a way of combating personal injury fraud and, consequently, bringing down soaring insurance costs. That is a bit disingenuous because I do not believe it will actually reduce insurance premiums. As we saw in the finance committee towards the end of last year, large insurance firms are either exaggerating the number of fraudulent personal injury claims they receive to hike up premiums or are grossly under-reporting them to An Garda Síochána.

FBD Insurance, AXA Insurance, Allianz and AIG are all on the record as estimating that one in five personal injury claims is fraudulent. This 20% figure is the one that dominates the headlines, giving the impression that one fifth of all claims are fraudulent. When we dig deeper into the numbers, however, quite a different picture is painted. From a total of 2,500 personal injury claims in 2018, AIG flagged 18%, or approximately 450, as suspicious, but only reported four, that is less than 1%, to the gardaí. If it is a case of failing to report suspicions of fraud, then insurance companies could themselves be breaking the law.

It was also interesting that one of the senior judges in the personal injuries section of the High Court recently stated that "it is fundamentally dishonest to blame supposedly fraudulent claims for the cost of insurance". It will be interesting to see if this Bill will lead to change, although legislation was already enacted in this area.

Section 25 of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 provides that where a person gives, or dishonestly causes to be given, evidence in a personal injuries action that is false or misleading in any material respect and which he or she knows to be false or misleading, he or she will be guilty of an offence. Section 14 of the same Act requires the plaintiff to swear an affidavit as to the truth of all assertions, allegations and information provided to the defendant. The cost of insurance working group looked at the use of this legislation to date and found no prosecutions or convictions under section 14.

I believe that the problem is not the offence of perjury but the lack of will to act on it and implement legislation. I hope that will not happen here but we are great at passing laws in this State. We have a very good suite of laws but very poor follow-up and, that is the problem.

I welcome the legislation and hope that it will prevent people from lying in court to gain a personal advantage but I am sceptical as to whether it will lead to lower insurance premiums.

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