Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for the Bill bringing forward.

While there has been a drop in the cost of insurance, I am wondering if the cost of insurance could have come down more in view of the fact that the average PIAB award has decreased by 42% to €13,525. We have not seen the same decrease in insurance costs. It is something that we need to get a far better response on from the insurance industry. In fairness, Departments over the past number of years have brought forward legislation to assist in making the process cheaper to access and the cost levels are not the same. It is important that we get an adequate response from the insurance companies, and I am not satisfied that we are.

The issue the Bill does not cover is claims against the State and against local authorities. We do not appear to get an overall breakdown per annum. While we might get some information from the State Claims Agency and while individual local authorities give it out to councillors, we do not get an overall yearly report for all the local authorities regarding the level of claims that they have paid out. For instance, I understand that if, in the morning, the State Claims Agency settled every claim currently pending against the State, including against Departments but also in respect of hospitals' medical negligence claims and medical practices that come under the State, it would cost between €4 billion and €5 billion. That is something that needs to be looked at as regards how we can introduce a better process for dealing with those claims, whether we can introduce mediation to a much more significant degree, whether there is a need to look at the structure of compensation in that area, and whether it should be confined to the present system of lump sum. We need to look at it.

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