Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to hear that Deputy Ó Murchú takes that approach, that it is about changing the insurance environment and that it is about engagement. However, and I know he is not suggesting it, the Government cannot get directly involved in the setting of insurance or get involved in the market in that way. I know that it is not what he is suggesting.

I assure the Deputy that I have met the Alliance for Insurance Reform, that the Minister for Finance, Deputy McGrath, has also met them, that I am meeting Fáilte Ireland very shortly and that I have met with individual sectors which have experienced insurance difficulty. I engage directly with people to set out the work that is being done to try and provide reassurance. Again however, this is a market-based economy. We want insurers to come here, to be able to operate and to create an environment where more are likely to come. We are seeing the effect of that through the reforms which have been successfully introduced regarding motor insurance. We are seeing Revolut, OUTsurance and others coming into that market. We are now doing the same work in respect of public liability and we are substantially changing the culture of insurance in Ireland. The culture of slips, trips and falls which the Occupiers Liability Act, the duty of care legislation, is targeted at addressing, is particularly prevalent in the heavy footfall, public-facing areas, many of which the Deputy has referenced. That, I hope, will potentially unlock further liability insurance capacity for businesses in that sector.

We have changed, successfully, the operating environment in motor insurance and we have constantly to watch that as well. We have to make sure that it is bedded down, that PIAB is really working and that solicitors are not inclined to try and drift things into the courts, where people are not going to get a better outcome. The data that was presented by the NCID yesterday showed clearly that over the period from 2015 to 2021, the difference between the PIAB outcome and the court outcome was nearly identical. However, one gets the PIAB outcome in half the time, and at one twentieth of the cost. Everybody should realise that those costs are borne by everybody else, the Deputy's family and friends, and my family and friends, when they are going to get their policies renewed. As a society and as a collective, we need to do anything that we can to reduce those costs in managing claims. People who are entitled to claims are absolutely entitled to their process, and that is absolutely fine. They need to be supported and their claims resolved. However, what we can do collectively to reduce that and support that operating environment is very important. We have done that with motor insurance and we need to continue to do that with public liability.

See this speech in context