Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I also generally welcome the Bill. Why are we dealing with all this legislation? What is the idea of it? What is the benefit of the personal injuries resolution board? The whole idea is that we are creating a framework and a set of structures that will eventually lead to reduced premiums and that we have an functioning insurance market, because we do not really have that at the moment. That is the major problem.

The personal injuries guidelines were obviously a necessary step in the right direction. PIAB has seen a 42% reduction in payouts for personal injuries. That was a move that needed to happen. Obviously, we would like to think that people would avail of mediation from the point of view that anything that can be kept out of the logjammed courts system we have in this State should be kept out of it. We all know we do not need to add legal cost upon legal cost in circumstances in which people find themselves needing compensation. If a person is injured in a particular set of circumstances, he or she should have insurance coverage. We all know there are people who have been horrifically injured, and there is a need to ensure we have insurance for them.

There is a problem, however. If we are talking just about public liability insurance, we know there are businesses that can only semi-operate some of the services they operated previously. Some cannot afford to do otherwise. We talk about the cost-of-living crisis and we know the issues we have with accommodation, whether personal or business. One of the major costs that have hampered everything from businesses to community organisations to community premises and all sorts of sporting groups and so on is the high price of public liability insurance. That is where offers can be made. Anyone who has been at a public event recently would be shocked to see full use of a bouncy castle. We know that is a particular issue.

The problem is that we do not have enough players in the market. We know there are particular issues in that regard. We know there are still legislative moves the Government needs to deal with. We know the whole area of duty of care needs to be done and dusted. We need to get to a place where I am not dealing with community centres being quoted €11,000 or €12,000 for insurance premiums. Generally, we find out that there may be a claim, but the claim probably relates to four different outfits. It relates to a company, building or community voluntary organisation and it will not even matter at the end of the day. They will all deal with increased premiums. It will not be down to the one person who would be seen to be accountable. That is without even getting into the rights and wrongs of particular cases.

The Minister of State has a lot of work to do to deal with the whole area of insurance.

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