Results 8,341-8,360 of 36,188 for speaker:Pearse Doherty
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: I welcome our guests. I suggested to the committee that we have this hearing because I believe passionately that many of the 75,000 policyholders with Setanta Insurance have been let down. They were insured with a company which they believed to be regulated here but which, it turns out, was regulated in Malta and went into liquidation. They were let down because they had seen the treatment...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: The Department has no view on whether the MIBI fund should be available. Is that the position?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: Is there potential for the Department to challenge the view of the MIBI if the bureau comes back and states it is not processing third party claims?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: I want to delve into the matter of commercial policies. The Central Bank informed us that two thirds of the 75,000 policyholders had commercial motor insurance polices and that one third had private motor insurance policies. Mr. Casey mentioned that the insurance compensation fund only pays out on claims where an individual is involved. He went on to state that while the liquidator had...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: If I have a small trading company called Leinster House Limited, Leinster House Holdings or whatever, I go to Setanta Insurance to take out commercial insurance under the name of Pearse Doherty and I go down the road and hit a wall and injure my back or whatever, can I make a claim? Am I entitled to make a claim from the fund?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: Nobody pays it.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: One of the big concerns I would have is that two thirds of Setanta's customers had commercial insurance. Of the 2,000 claims, which amount to €35 million, on average we could say that two thirds of them had commercial policies. However, there is a big question mark over whether a commercial customer would be entitled, under certain circumstances, to access the fund at all. Is it the...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: There are commercial claims at this point in time. There are citizens in Ireland, with big claims and small claims, will simply not have access to the fund.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: Can Mr. Casey give any indication to the committee as to what we are looking at? Would it be one third of the policyholders or lower than that?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: Obviously, it is legally complex and technical but could there be a situation where one of those claimants, who would have a large claim of €825,000, for example, which means a personal injury, would not be able access to the fund as a result of the way his or her policy was structured? Is that possible or are we just talking about damages to walls and vehicles?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: The fund will be available even though it was the company that had the insurance.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: No. What about the driver of the car? If the driver of the car-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: The owner of the company, who is driving the commercial vehicle, would be able to access the insurance compensation fund.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: The Department was only informed of the problems within this company in late January. Thereafter, it basically hung 75,000 Irish customers of Setanta Insurance out to dry. I am not sure whether there were other options available but did the Department consider any? The customers in question paid their premiums to the company, which was regulated by the EU, and they would have expected to...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: Was the possibility of taking the company into State control examined? For example, throughout the entire process the company was seeking buyers. In view of the fact that the company did not have any customers outside Ireland, the Department applied a different rule in respect of it than was the case with Quinn Insurance. Did the Department consider following that example and ensuring that...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: So the Department did not consider any other solution.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: That is fair enough.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: If MIBI states that it will not process third-party claims and that these can be processed by the insurance compensation fund, will there be a hierarchy of payments or will all payments be processed at the same time?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: If MIBI states that it is not paying out on third-party claims, then there is no sequence wherein all first-party claims have to be processed by the insurance compensation fund before third-party ones.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform: Collapse of Setanta Insurance: Central Bank and Department of Finance (9 Jul 2014)
Pearse Doherty: The Maltese have an additional buffer of 0.5%. What is the position with the Central Bank in this regard?