Seanad debates

Wednesday, 5 November 2003

Insurance Industry Reform: Motion.

 

The MIAB report has 57 key recommendations. I acknowledge the Government has made progress on some of the recommendations, but on others they have not. I am concerned that the stamp duty on insurance premiums is 2%. Recommendation 58 of the report said that should be removed. Nothing has happened in that regard. There was no mention of it in the Tánaiste's speech so far as I could see. The legislation needed to tackle fraudulent and exaggerated claims has so far not been introduced. We await it in the near future, but we will hold our fire until we see it, hopefully sooner rather than later. The road safety and driver education syllabus in schools, which is another major recommendation, has not been implemented. Members have raised the whole question of variation in driving tests, failure rates and the appropriateness of driving tests. Overtaking, for example, is not part of the driving test. Unfortunately many car crashes happen when people are overtaking. That is probably the most likely time to have a crash. Neither is driving at night-time part of the driving test, a time when there are also many car crashes. We should therefore question the relevance of the driving test and the huge difference in pass-fail statistics, for example the divergence between figures in Shannon and Cavan and Carlow. I am not sure what the figures say about the people in those counties, or is it a comment on examiners?

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