Matt Shanahan (Waterford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As has been said a number of times already, insurance costs as a result of personal injury awards have been a blight on the Irish business landscape for a number of years. It is not stretching it to any degree to say that a lot of businesses have been on the verge of self-insuring in recent years. In actual fact, I know of some that were trading without insurance for a period because they just could not sustain the cost. We are still seeing businesses failing to secure adequate liability insurance and that is a significant problem going forward. I hope it is an issue that the Department will look at.

On top of that, we have also seen insurance companies exit the market. It is fair to say there has been a very significant lack of transparency in the market in terms of what the claims situation was like. That must be addressed, particularly now as we try to deliver insurance reform, which has been a very long time coming. I remember a previous Fine Gael Minister of State, who has come and gone, championing insurance reform in this House but it is only now that we are getting into the thrust of it.

My colleagues and I in the Regional Group have been active in this area. We have been working to try to improve the landscape and have liaised with businesses, particularly in the SME sector. We have pressed for the introduction of more significant perjury legislation. Perjury, unfortunately, has played a key part in a lot of compensation claims over the past number of years. We have seen CCTV evidence showing set-up traffic accidents, where people clearly were not in cars and yet they went into court and committed perjury by claiming they were passengers in vehicles. Hopefully that is coming to an end. Someone who has led on insurance reform in this country is Mr. Pat McDonagh of Supermacs. He was one of the first people to introduce video surveillance in hallways and close to toilets to show that people were actively trying to create slips and falls in order to avail of personal injury payouts. It has been a very significant problem and remains so.

I am sure the Minister of State is aware that there has been a reduction in motor premiums over the past 12 to 15 months, which has been put down to the ongoing work of insurance reform. What is amazing is that at the same time, insurance costs have risen for the business sector. That does not make sense. The claims environment does not reflect the premiums that a lot of businesses are paying. Some have never had a payout, yet they have seen their insurance premiums rise by 100%, 150% and 200% in the past year. There is still something fundamentally wrong with our insurance sector that needs to be tackled.

Everyone will agree that many low-level claims can be adequately dealt with outside of the courts system. With a working book of quantum, it should now be possible to apply transparency to many claims. We have seen that system operate across Europe and particularly in the UK. Our nearest neighbour has operated that system very well. However, it also remains the case that even after the recent judicial guidelines, the values in our book of quantum are still far in excess of those in the UK. That should be revisited in the coming years.

I welcome the Personal Injuries Resolution Board Bill which will, if properly supported, significantly reduce the cost of administering personal injuries awards and should, therefore, reduce the cost of liability insurance for individuals and businesses. However, my colleagues and I have a key concern which I raised at meetings of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise, Trade and Employment, when we were looking at PIAB as part of the pre-legislative scrutiny process. A mechanism needs to be inserted in this legislation that will allow reforms to counter any unforeseen challenges to the operation of PIAB or PIRB into the future. Such a review mechanism is already built into the founding legislation of the Legal Services Regulatory Authority. There are three main components to which I draw the attention of the Minister of State. The aforementioned legislation allows that within 18 months, and not later than after each three-year period, a review of the operation of the Act is called for and that would be welcome in this case. It also provides that not later than 12 months after the review commences, a report is to be made to both Houses of the Oireachtas and findings, conclusions and any recommendations resulting are to be made to the Minister of the day. Again, this would be extremely beneficial to the operation of this legislation.

Beyond that, another provision is that recommendations under relevant subsections may include amendments to the Act, "including to part 7 of the Solicitors Acts 1954 to 2015 or any instrument made under those Acts" as the authority considers appropriate arising from such findings and conclusions. Finally the legislation provides that in conducting a review under this section, the authority shall consult with the Competition and Consumer Protection Commission, CPCC, professional bodies and such other persons as it considers appropriate for such purposes. I would like to see amendments being tabled along those lines for this legislation and I will certainly be looking to do that because we need to have an ongoing review of this legislation. We cannot just enact it and then assume it will be fit for purpose into the future. There are plenty of challenges still coming down the road in terms of the instigation of this legislation and we need to be able to ensure that it is doing the very thing it is supposed to do, which is to reform the delinquent situation we have had in this country for years in terms of personal injuries compensation.

I am happy to point the Minister of State to the references I have just mentioned. Another thing we need to do is stop some of the scaremongering that is being carried out by some parties who would rather not see this legislation being enacted fully. I refer to recent media reports that awards for minor injuries will not cover medical costs due to inflation. That is completely erroneous. Medical costs and other out-of-pocket expenses are covered under the special damages provision and are not affected by any recent reforms.

Some further public information needs to be put out there to show that this Bill has been worked on for quite a period of time - perhaps too long - but at least we now seem to be getting to something that is going to deliver reform.

Having considered the length of time we in this country have spent talking about insurance reform, we now have to be sure that what we are going to enact is fit for purpose and can be adapted in the future to deal with whatever difficulties may come down the tracks. As I have said, I welcome where we are going with this Bill. I will table some amendments, but I broadly welcome the Bill.

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