Michael McNamara (Clare, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I endorse what the previous speaker said and I thank Deputy Doherty for bringing forward this Bill. We have discussed the issue of dual pricing and how wrong it is quite a bit. Effectively, it punishes customers of insurance companies for their loyalty. It is also important to point out that, in effect, it preys on people's vulnerability. What frequently happens is that it affects people who have been with an insurance company for a very long time, who know that they must insure their car, home or whatever else, and they get a bill in the post.

The only way to challenge that is to ring around or to ring a specific insurance company. At any time, and particularly at this time, it can be hard to get to speak to anybody in these companies. One rings up and is faced with an option of dialling 1 for sales, 2 for claims and 3 for whatever else. A certain group in society find this difficult. My parents were among them although they are no longer around. There is a large cohort that finds this difficult. It goes beyond insurance companies. Right across services that are provided, people think that a customer service is providing a telephone line that people can sit at the end of, pressing a number for different options. That is difficult for elderly people and for vulnerable people to do without getting confused. That needs to be addressed. That inability to demand a fairer quote is something that insurance companies prey on. People give up. They say that they could not get through and that they have to continue to insure their car, house, farm or whatever. Multiple-peril insurance is another example. That needs to be addressed.

I listened with interest to the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming's, contribution where he said that the Government has concentrated on dual pricing and accepts that it is wrong but that differential pricing is not, and that that is a reason to oppose the Bill. If we all agree that dual pricing is wrong, why is nothing being done about it by the Government, the Central Bank or anybody else? There is consensus in the House that it is wrong for a variety of reasons but nothing is being done about it. If the problem is differential pricing and the Government thinks that differential pricing is acceptable or offers benefits, can the Bill not be allowed to progress? I appreciate that the Title of the Bill might cause a problem but can we not see dual pricing addressed? Do we have to throw the baby out with the bathwater, as the Government is proposing?

We are now rightly told that childcare is essential to society. It is indeed essential to the functioning of society, yet crèches which offer childcare find it increasingly difficult to get a range of quotes for occupier's liability insurance. I see the Minister is shaking his head but I know that in the previous Government, his colleague, Michael D'Arcy, dealt exclusively with this issue, though not with much success despite his best endeavours. He said that he went to various underwriters in the United Kingdom etc. and they were pulling out of the market because they were not interested in quoting for Ireland.

There was a time when Fine Gael governments were not necessarily afraid to intervene in the market. A Fine Gael Minister set up the predecessor of VHI because there was a need for a State company to offer health insurance. I heard Deputy Boyd Barrett say that there should not be voluntary health insurance. That is a slightly different ideological matter. We all agree that childcare and crèches are essential and that, by law, they have to be insured. Is it not time for the State to offer occupier's liability insurance by setting up a company to intervene in the market? If the market is as skewed as the then Minister of State, Michael D'Arcy, found that it was because of the unwillingness of various underwriters in the City of London to quote prices in Ireland then the State has to intervene and quote prices for occupier's liability in this sector and across other sectors. The hospitality sector is closed for the moment and will be for an indefinite period but it will come back at some point and will need occupier's liability insurance. The State needs to look at intervening in this.

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