Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

As the Deputy rightly says, the categories of car insurance and home insurance are separate from the issue of business insurance. There have been reductions in car insurance, which affects every household in the country, this year and since the guidelines came in.

Three major insurance companies were at the Joint Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach this week. Two of them said they have reduced prices by 10% this year so far and another said it reduced them by over 5%. That is confirmation of what the CSO is saying.

In relation to business insurance, an important Central Bank report issued recently showed that for the vast majority of businesses the average cost of insurance is under €2,500.

There are high-risk sectors in the Irish economy that have difficulty getting insurance and those sectors need to be helped. That is why I met specifically with the Alliance for Insurance Reform on a couple of occasions recently, and I will be doing so immediately in the new year again, on the euro-for-euro reductions we are seeking. Those reductions that are happening have been confirmed by the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB. Obviously, some people are not happy and want to appeal them to the courts as well, and that is taking some further time.

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