Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank all of the 26 speakers who have spoken on this legislation so far, those who offered their support - outside of the Government speakers who are attempting to delay this legislation - and those who mentioned me, in particular.

This legislation is about fairness. I will deal with some of the issues put forward by Government spokespersons in their rebuttal. To the Minister, Deputy Donohoe, I say that he is a year behind the time and needs to catch up. The UK's Financial Conduct Authority, FCA, is not completing its consultation next year; it completed it on 25 January this year and is going to announce its final price remedy in the second quarter of this year, not next year. This will come into effect four months from the date of the announcement, that is at the latest in October, and not next year. This will be the third round of consultation. The first report that it carried out did not seek to ban the practice. After consultation with the industry, the second report found that the industry would not go far enough and the authority says now that there is nothing to do but to ban it. It is now looking at the tweaks as to the implementation of the ban and not at the ban itself. It will be banned in Newry, Strabane and Belfast later this year but here in this State, our Parliament or at least our Government are happy to allow insurance companies to facilitate this price gouging.

On the Minister’s second issue as to discounts, this legislation does allow for discounts. The Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, made the same claim. It is deeply regrettable that the Government does not understand the issue in terms of the legislation. Section 3 of the Bill, for example, provides that rating “factors [cannot be used] unrelated to risk other than for the addition of business expenses”. What are business expenses? These are defined in section 4 of the Bill and the definition is actually lifted from the Central Bank (National Claims Information Database) Act 2018 which says that these business expenses provide for commissions and acquisition costs in acquiring new policies, which can include discounts. Dual policies, whether it is home or motor insurance, can also continue to exist where there are discounts there, as long as they are also provided to renewing customers and not just to new customers. The Minister’s arguments are falling flat.

They talk about the issue in respect of new providers. I put the evidence before the Ministers again from the Financial Conduct Authority. Why is this important if it is coming from a different jurisdiction and is it relevant to here? Of course it is relevant because the Central Bank and the FCA came to the same conclusion on the overcharging of motorists and homeowners with this practice because most of the companies operate in both markets. The FCA found when it looked at 17 million different parts of policies, across 6 million unique policy documents, that this is actually going to increase competition.

How does that work? It works because insurance companies like Allianz, Aviva and Liberty have a huge amount of data on individuals. Their pricing models are based on how likely it is that customer “A” and “B” will stay with a company or shop around. If these customers are likely to stay, with all of the information that the companies have gathered and can purchase on the individual over the years, they can then push up the premium to exorbitant levels. A new entrant cannot compete with that. That is why there is a European investigation being carried out on data-sharing by the industry here in Ireland. There have been dawn raids on the industry because they are operating like and have been called a cartel. By levelling the playing field one is actually increasing competition, but the Government does not need to take my word for it, it can take that of the FCA which has looked at this issue right across the same insurance companies that are operating here.

The Minister also said that this Bill would impact on childcare settings and providers that are not being covered any more. The legislation does not deal with that but deals with motor insurance and home insurance. I ask the Minister to read and understand the legislation, please.

The Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, claimed that every speaker spoke of dual pricing and omitted to talk about differential pricing. He went on to say that this is not what the legislation is about. I drafted the legislation. The Central Bank report which we are waiting for was commissioned at my request. The Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, did not raise this issue and neither did the senior Minister for years, despite the positions that they have held.

The reality is - this is where the Minister of State, Deputy Fleming, should stick to his script because these were unscripted comments of his - that dual pricing is a form of differential pricing. My word does not need to be taken on this, one need only look at the Central Bank’s report, and perhaps even read it. What we are doing is restricting differential pricing by banning dual pricing. For 77% of customers who are renewing home insurance and 67% of motor insurance customers, this will put money back into their pockets. The FCA has estimated that this will benefit between €4.5 billion and €12 billion over the course of a decade by putting money into people’s pockets, increasing competition and increasing transparency.

I have already introduced legislation and I have worked with Government on it, but the Government has delayed it for two years and is pulling the same stroke here by delaying this important legislation. I ask the Government to drop the delay and to allow us to proceed to Committee Stage with regard to some of the preparatory work that is needed. I appeal to any person who is watching this, that the Government may try to delay us but will not stop us. In the meantime, people should not accept their insurance renewal and should shop around because insurance companies are fleecing people. Until the time is reached when we get the better of the Government on this issue and these practices are banned, the public are vulnerable to these exploitative practices.

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