Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak about insurance reform. We could talk about many aspects of insurance but I want to home in on a few matters. In my area, voluntary groups have rural social schemes and community employment schemes which do work in the community. However, they are not able to do work on the roads or in public areas without having public liability insurance. Those groups are doing the work of the local authority and that work should be covered by the local authority as part of its overall insurance cover. The situation as it stands is creating a layer of insurance on top of a layer of insurance. People, including Tidy Towns volunteers, cannot do work in those areas. They cannot do grass trimming or whatever else. Local authorities do not have the people to do that work. We must be practical.

Between employer liability and public liability insurance, professional indemnity insurance and product liability insurance, we are creating and layers and layers of insurance. Take the example of any Government body involved in building a project, a housing scheme or whatever else. The relevant local authority must take out insurance on the site and the contractor must take out public liability and employer liability insurance on the site. The subcontractors must take out public liability and employer liability insurance. Main contractors and subcontractors must also take out professional indemnity insurance. We are creating more and more layers of insurance. If the contracting authority would take out an umbrella insurance on the site to cover all aspects of activity for the duration of the work, there would be savings on insurance premiums and the cost of delivering those projects. There would be savings for the taxpayer. It would bring a little sense to the overall issue of insurance for businesses. That is a matter we need to consider closely. We tried to do it a few times when I was involved in the construction industry. The benefit to the client who went to take out insurance was that there was no reduction coming to the contractors from their existing insurance because, as I said, they do not work like that.

I know of a number of cases relating to flood insurance, including in the town of Headford where a housing estate sits approximately 25 ft. above any flood line but because a map has been prepared showing a flood risk within the area and the circle of risk includes the estate, insurance companies are refusing to give cover for flood damage to those houses. That is discrimination affecting six or eight houses in an estate. I know of a case in the past where a flood map was produced by the Office of Public Works that suggests a 100-year risk of flood and an insurance company refused to offer flood insurance. There are housing estates close to me in Tuam and in other places around Galway that have never flooded but because there is a risk of flooding, the insurance company is refusing to take into account the fact that there is no history of flooding on the sites. There is an onus on us to ensure we highlight those issues so the Minister and the Government can prepare to bring in insurance that is workable for businesses.

I acknowledge the Alliance for Insurance Reform and all the work it has done in trying to highlight the issues. It is important that it is doing that work because business is suffering as a result of the premiums being charged. We need to be able to reduce those premiums. We need to look at this issue in a completely fresh light and ensure that people are covered, claims are reasonable and insurance premiums are affordable to business people.

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