As a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Enterprise and Small Business I sat through evidence from the various insurance companies telling us how difficult it was to make money in the Irish market. In their presentations they described the Irish market as unprofitable and unattractive. Yet, just a short while before the publication of the committee's interim report, to which Senator Leyden referred, the insurers suggested that they had made record profits from their activities in most areas of their business in Ireland.