Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

To go back to the example I gave, which was from budget day in 2019 for budget 2020, the Minister for Finance delivered the budget and the junior Minister represented him at the ECOFIN meeting. It is not the case. Junior Ministers have represented the Minister for Finance. The Eurogroup meeting is the day before, with the Minister, Deputy Donohoe. There is no reason he cannot be here. He attends informal ECOFIN meetings, but not the formal meetings in most cases.

When we were in the convention centre during the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Minister told us there were other ways to do this. We have seen insurance prices increase. According to the CSO, which is only indicative - we have to wait another year for the Central Bank data - insurance prices have increased every month for the past ten months. We are hearing on the ground that is the case. I carried out a survey to which 700 or 800 people responded and 90% of them said their insurance prices have gone up. This is about holding the insurance companies to account. They have to live by a version of this law if they operate in the North or Britain. The same major insurance companies that operate here, operate in those jurisdictions. Why do we not hold them to account? We have legislation that can do no harm. It is about holding these companies to account and putting a downward pressure on prices, which is badly needed.

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