Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

On foot of the events that occurred in Dublin last night, which occur annually, I congratulate the members of the Dublin fire brigade and the other emergency service workers in the city and the rest of the country. They have a considerable job to do every Hallowe'en night. Given the events of last night, it is now appropriate for the Government to review the effectiveness of the fireworks legislation put in place in the past 12 months. In spite of the legislation, the Dublin Fire Brigade had to respond to 700 calls last night and there were many assaults and instances of anti-social behaviour. Under the legislation as it stands, a company can apply to the Department of Justice, Equality and Law Reform seeking a licence for a special fireworks event. We should possibly relax this provision to allow communities to host events jointly if they so choose, given that the local Garda Superintendent decides they are in the public interest. We must clamp down on the anti-social behaviour that occurs at Hallowe'en but in a way that brings the communities with us. I thank the members of the emergency services for doing a splendid job last night.

There has been much comment in the past 24 hours on the Personal Injuries Assessment Board and its effectiveness. When I saw the report on the board in the newspaper, I believed some of the claims being made about its effectiveness were quite fraudulent. It is doing a very good job in terms of reducing the cost of premia.

The other aspect of the insurance industry that we need to address concerns public liability insurance for local authorities. In my local authority area, the county manager factored into the budget a sum of approximately €1.7 million to meet small claims pertaining to footpaths. The bill for footpath improvements in the local authority area is just €800,000. We are therefore spending twice as much money on settling claims through the courts as on footpath improvements. We must tackle this.

Some local authorities have done considerable work to highlight fraudulent claims and ensure people know the sums local authorities have to hand out on a daily basis. I ask the Government to consider this. Perhaps the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government will address in the House the issues of public liability insurance and the horrendous sums of money being handed out by local authorities to settle claims throughout the country.