Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

If we have the same objective, then the Government should allow the legislation that I have drafted to proceed. It passed Second Stage here about three years ago. The Government is stopping that legislation from being passed. All of the major insurance companies here are the same ones that operate in Britain, where they have to account for whether the reduced costs that the changes in the legislation there are supposed to have resulted in have been passed on. If the Minister of State is genuinely sincere in what he says, then let us work on this together.

I would like to hear the Minister of State's view on the Government's position. He will be aware that the Judicial Council has submitted its proposal to the Minister for Justice on an almost 17% increase in the value of awards. That is something which would result in awards going up. What are the Government's views in that regard?

There is no doubt that there have been many changes. I advocated for a large number of them, and we supported all of them. However, one thing we said previously is that we need to get agreement from the insurance industry about what this would mean for premiums. Industry representatives came before the finance committee and told us that if we did not see reductions of 20%, we would need to ask serious questions. There have been no reductions of 20%. Motor insurance has gone up by 12% and the cost of household insurance has gone through the roof. Public liability for sports clubs and businesses never decreased.

See this speech in context