Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Taoiseach's officials for their behind-the-scenes engagement over continuing recruitment anomalies for our cardiology services at University Hospital Waterford, UHW. Hopefully, there will be no further snafus with building on the Taoiseach's promise to the people of the south east.

It is fair to say that we had all better keep a beady eye on the delivery of these future approved appointments.

With that in hand for the moment, it allows me to use my time to address an issue of national importance, that is, our dysfunctional insurance market. Insurance, the contributions of the many for the losses of the few, is supposed to make our society more resilient. Our Minister for Health, Deputy Stephen Donnelly, was not wrong when he observed that we do things in life, such as playing sport or throwing a child onto a trampoline, that inherently carry a risk. We have got to manage that risk. Increasingly, commercial business, not-for-profits, schools, the Government and families are finding it hard, and that they can do less in life, because insurance is not working. This is déjà vufrom 20 years ago.

Occupiers' liability remains extraordinarily onerous. If something happens on your premises, you are to blame, irrespective of the circumstances. Nothing has happened on the reform of occupiers' liability, despite it being in the justice action plan. The ink is barely dry on the personal injuries guidelines committee award levels and they are already being circumvented. There appear to be no repercussions for making persistent nuisance, or even downright fraudulent, claims. Cases takes too long and take too much out of the people involved in them. Simply put, insurance costs too much and for many it is becoming impossible to obtain at any reasonable economic cost. Indeed, what is becoming a parasitical insurance-medical-legal industry crushes the social, cultural and economic vitality of our society. It is no surprise that that honeypot crushed the troika back in the day.

It is surely time to grab the nettle and stop tinkering with tort reform but replace tort compensation with a sturdy social security framework that serves victims without respect to cause or fault. Tort reform was legislated for in Australia a decade ago and has delivered for that society. We must do something similar in Ireland.

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