Results 21,161-21,180 of 35,889 for speaker:Pearse Doherty

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I have spoken on the record for a long time in respect of this issue. There has been a dragging of heels on this. On 2 July 2015, a letter was sent to the Central Bank under section 6(a) in respect of the insurance sector, yet the committee is only beginning to get its work together. The second meeting was held only on 1 September. In the meantime, every person in the State has received...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I just want to tease out some issues based on the responses to my original questions.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: The Minister of State responded in terms of the group's structure, but I asked whether he would provide us with the membership of the group and each sub-committee, not the organisations that their members represent. I also asked for each sub-committee's terms of reference.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Yes.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Who represents the Central Bank, who represents-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I do not believe that the Minister of State addressed my point on the Central Bank's statement that insurance companies had followed an imprudent pricing and underwriting approach. In the same letter it mentioned how Irish general insurance companies had eroded their capital base and why the Central Bank did not intervene when that was happening.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I raised this matter because the Dáil, including the Minister of State, agreed that we needed to examine regulation of the sector. That includes how the Central Bank handled the issue. To clarify, the Central Bank did not tell me this. Rather, it told the Minister of State's boss, the Minister, Deputy Noonan, in a letter dated 18 August 2015. If the Minister has not informed the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: For the record, that is not my sole conclusion. I believe it is the primary reason for the increases but there are other reasons which have also been articulated. I am not asking the Minister of State to reach a conclusion now. I am asking him, as the chairman of the working group, to identify why the Central Bank believed that imprudent pricing and underwriting approaches across most...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I ask the Minister of State to investigate that further. To go back to letter to the Minister of Finance from Professor Honohan from over a year ago, I am shocked that the Minister of State is not aware of it. It is very clear from his presentation to this committee that the Minister of State has covered his brief and is on top of the issues. Whether the Minister of State is acting...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Okay, let us say that the Minister of State has read it. Let us forget about the suggestion that the Minister for Finance or Mr. Moran had not shared it with him-----

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: That is fair enough. That is what I am saying.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Sorry, the reason I am saying this is that in response to an earlier question, the Minister of State said that no suggestion has been made to him that there was a need for additional powers to regulate the insurance sector.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: What I am saying is that the letter from Professor Honohan points out that the Deputy Governor of the Central Bank, Mr. Roux flagged in a letter to Mr. Derek Moran additional measures that could be taken to strengthen the supervision of non-life insurance. They include the consolidation of disparate insurance regulations in a coherent whole, transposing without further delay the Solvency II...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: That is a different answer to the one the Minister of State gave me earlier and a very simple one ---

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: With respect, I asked the Minister of State a question about additional powers that the Central Bank was seeking in order to regulate insurance holding companies effectively. The Bank wrote to the Minister over a year ago seeking those powers. When will the Bank be given the necessary powers? Solvency II was transposed in January of this year and we are now in September. The Minister of...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: They are looking for powers, which means the powers are new, right?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Yes, I know that.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I agree with that, but they did not get the powers they were looking for last year. That is the point.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: Right. We will move on to the last point I want to make. It is a suggestion, so hopefully it will not be problematic.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Minister of State (7 Sep 2016)

Pearse Doherty: I understand that. We talked about the increases in insurance premiums, and the CSO gives us the average increase. The reality is that we have seen, or know of, people who have had increases of 100%, 200% or 300%. Those are bizarre increases for people who, as the Minister of State mentioned earlier, have made no additional claims or have not incurred penalty points. I have spoken to a...