Richard O'Donoghue (Limerick County, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I have paperwork in front of me here but I do not need to use it because I know what I am talking about. I thank Deputy Doherty. I have been listening to what he has been saying for the past number of years and it is 100% true. The Government has failed to tackle this issue and that can be explained by a look at the Cabinet. How many of them are self-employed? I am self-employed and have vehicles parked at home which I am being charged full price to insure, as is the case for every self-employed person at the moment. They are being charged full premiums. Why has the Government not acted on this? Fine Gael has been in government for nine years and it has failed. The Cabinet does not have any self-employed people and does not understand them. It does not understand what it is like to wonder, week after week, if the cost of an insurance premium is going to rise.

I will tell the Minister of State how insurance companies work. For companies and small businesses, premiums rise and customers do not know what is going to happen from one end of the year to the next, even if they have no claims. I know a man who has been driving for the past ten years and whose insurance doubled when the premium for his car policy came out. He thought that could not be right and went back to the insurance company, explained that he has never had an accident, penalty points or anything, and asked why his insurance premium had increased by 80%. The insurance company told him that the statistics showed that he was due a claim. The statistics showed that. Four years on, he still has not had an accident or got penalty points but the statistics showed that he was due an accident and that is why the cost of his premium increased. That is wrong.

The Government needs to stand up and look after the people. Nobody in the Cabinet understands insurance.

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