Results 8,221-8,240 of 13,254 for speaker:Seán Sherlock

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: Essentially, as far as the commission goes, this investigation could take how long, roughly?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: We live in the political world. With all due respect, I am not satisfied with hearing that speed is the friend of success. The people watching this want to know. The commission is a statutory body and one of the commissioners, Mr. Kenny, is before the committee. Can Mr. Kenny give us a timeframe by which the investigation will be completed? What could the outcome potentially be after the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: With all due respect, Mr. Kenny cannot say that definitively. That is a rather subjective statement. The proof of the pudding in that case will become evident. As Mr. Kenny has said, there is potentially a year in this. He cannot say for sure that premia will not actually increase as a result of the fact that the commission has signalled that it will undertake an investigation.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: I will close out on this point. What we are hearing is that the commission will look at one element of what is effectively a much bigger picture, if I am to sum up its contribution. As the Chairman articulated, there is still the issue of data, of having perfect knowledge within the sector. It is clear that in the absence of perfect knowledge, we, as legislators, are in the dark. If we...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: Obviously not in the Irish market - it is anonymised and shared but only among those who are in the largest organisation, which is Insurance Ireland.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: We will have an opportunity to investigate that later.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: To corroborate what the Chairman is saying, the Injuries Board has stated that there is no public information available in respect of overall numbers and costs of claims for personal injuries as the only figures that have been made public do not contain any information on the numbers or cost of directly settled cases. It stated that without access to this information, a full picture of the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: Can the commission adjudicate?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: From a competition law perspective, can the commission adjudicate on the nature of the sharing of that information intra industry as opposed to the public domain in terms of the deliberations we have in this committee?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: Someone will correct me if I am wrong but to reinforce what the Chairman said, Zenith, which I can name because it is on the public record, is telling us through the Irish Brokers Association that it was de factolocked out of a process of data sharing relating to the market. We are told there are three fundamental databases, but it appears that not everybody operating within the market, or...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: Through the Chair, I ask Senator Horkan to forgive me for cutting across him. Who talks about data without knowing what it is?

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: Mr. Horan should be specific because if he is laying that at the door of members, I would say bí cúramach because it is an integral part of what we are talking about here today, about parsing out the issue of data.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: I thank the witnesses for coming into us today. There has been a focus on data. I am looking at this from the point of view of whether the market is competitive. Whether it is perfectly competitive or not remains to be seen. There is still a fundamental question about whether there is perfect knowledge around the market. We all recognise there has to be a surplus on every premium derived...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: What does scoping out an exercise mean? If Insurance Ireland provides statistics to the Central Bank then yes, there are statistics, but the issue is how they are mined for quantitative analysis of the data so that decisions can be made. Will the scoping exercise, whatever that is, result in transparency around the cost of a premium? There is no breakdown of the cost of an average...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: I apologise for cutting across Mr. Thompson, but now we are drilling down into the nub of this. He states that the data is proprietary but, at the same time, he states that Insurance Ireland is yielding up sufficient data to statutory organisations and the Central Bank. Effectively, he is giving the impression, with regard to its intervention, that there is perfect knowledge in the sector...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: The reality contradicts this. If I am to be very frank and blunt, insurance is a hard-nosed business and is highly competitive. The companies have shareholders and a bottom line. The witnesses cannot come into the Oireachtas and state that there are eight aspirations or solutions to this and that the sixth is to reduce legal costs, when we know, anecdotally and factually, that insurance...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (15 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: There is an inverse at work here. Mr. Thompson has said that the industry is settling more and tackling fraudulent claims, but it is increasing premiums at the same time. It does not figure. I wish to go back to the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB, statement which argues that there is no public information available on the overall number and cost of claims. The PIAB has access...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: I too thank the delegations for attending the committee today. The points they have made have been raised previously by others who have intervened. There is a common purpose there which is distilled down into a number of issues, namely, about access to proper data and ensuring an upgrading of the book of quantum. An additional point was made today by the Irish Road Haulage Association,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: I do not want to give Ms Murphy platitudes. I think we all appreciate the attendant costs that are being loaded on to the sector. Our purpose here is to try to drill down. My understanding is that there is a single European market for insurance. I want to get to the nub of the interaction between the witnesses and the working group. It appears that there has been no engagement so this...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Rising Cost of Motor Insurance: Discussion (Resumed) (13 Sep 2016)

Seán Sherlock: Essentially, there is a point to be made on the issue of access or opening up the market to insurance on a pan-European basis or throughout the European Union. If I understood Mr. McDonnell correctly, what he is saying is that there is an inconsistency in what hauliers are being quoted by the same company. That is something the committee needs to take on board. I will leave it there but...