Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Doherty for bringing forward the Bill and compliment him on his relentless challenge to the racket in insurance. I wish the Minister of State well. He is a decent man and will try his best but I am disappointed tonight that he is buying another nine months for the insurance companies to rob us blind. Why would they not when the Government has let them off? This has been going on for decades. We have seen it in this episode with Covid. Publicans who have business interruption insurance ring me every day and the insurance companies use every rule in the book to keep from paying, such as the fact there was not an outbreak in the public house itself. It is blackguarding.

I operate on the principle of “Ní neart go cur le chéile”. We are all in this together. We were not all in this together. Big businesses have cleaned up during this Covid pandemic over the past 14 months. Insurance companies had no claims going on because pubs and many other businesses were closed and they gave a miserly couple of euro off. In some cases, it was €40 out of a €7,000 premium. Now they are pressurising them to get their insurance renewed. They give them 21 days and if they do not go with them, they will be penalised again. It is a shocking cartel out there with price gouging and everything else.

Young people are trying to get on the road, but face the ineptitude of the RSA and the NDLS and the carry-on there. There are 100,000 people waiting to get going. How will we get our economy recovering? Pass-through charges are extortionate. One hotelier was charged €30,000 while his hotel was closed. It is a racket. Big businesses can do what they like. In this case it is insurance but it is all across the way. I raised during Leaders' Questions last week the way things are stacked against small business and the young person trying to get on the road.

I know there are some fictitious claims, but they have been rooted out. I compliment the Regional Group on bringing forward the Bill introduced by former Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh. We must act. We cannot wait for another nine months, as suggested in the amendment, because people are being drained of their very lifeblood by insurance companies who refuse to pay.

I salute the four gallant publicans in Dublin who took the case, but like my colleague Deputy Collins said, it is not happening. They have not been paid. The insurance companies are just prevaricating, stalling and stonewalling. They cannot say "No". They are friends of Fianna Fáil. They are friends of Fine Gael and the Government is now supported by the Green Party. They support each other and to hell with na daoine óga and na daoine beaga.

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