Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

With respect, the Tánaiste obviously does not know how insurance works because he just gave the line of the insurance industry when he said that there will be a lag period and that reductions will happen but will take a while to work through. I quoted for the Tánaiste what the representatives of the insurance industry had told us. Let me quote those words again. The representatives said that, "when we price insurance, and we are pricing insurance for the next 12 months, we have to set out our premium on the basis of what we expect to happen in terms of the number of claims over that 12-month period." The reality is that over the next 12 months, the cost of awards will be coming down. The announcement at the weekend will be given legal effect within two weeks.

The amounts paid out by insurance companies in awards will be reduced and therefore the premiums which people will enter into today, next week and next month should reflect those reductions. It is really important for the Government to understand that aspect and to ensure that the insurance industry is passing those reductions on straight away. When the representatives of the insurance industry wanted this legislation passed, which this House did, they told us that if we are not seeing reductions of 15% in motor insurance and 20% in public liability insurance then the politicians in this House should be asking those representative serious questions. The reality is that the awards are being cut straight away, because anything which is already assessed by PIAB has had a premium charged for it by the insurance companies. The insurance companies have counted that cost in previous premiums. Will the Tánaiste support the call for immediate reductions-----

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