Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 5:

In page 16, between lines 8 and 9, to insert the following:“20. Each provider of road insurance shall publish data on premiums, awards and risk for each category of driver and vehicle and each type of insurance held, the cost of awards under both litigation and PIAB and the costs of uninsured drivers and failed insurance companies.”.

A number of strands are coming together here and this problem is emerging as a larger one. There was an interesting discussion on the Sean O'Rourke programme on Thursday last week. The Road Safety Authority, RSA, now knows that far more accidents are taking place than we are actually recording. The information supplied by the Garda to the RSA may be about one third of the picture and, in respect of pedal cyclists, who are covered in this section of the Bill, it may be about one tenth of the picture. We need co-ordinated data between the insurance industry, hospitals, general practitioners and the Garda, not just the Garda acting on its own.

I mentioned the work of Jack Short who used to work in the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and then went to the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, which disappeared into the OECD. He has done work on this issue in the recent past and finds that the insurance sector is not really addressing the issues of providing data as to what the insurance market for road safety should cover. Should it cover certain kinds of vehicles or drivers? The Central Bank report on insurance seems to indicate that third party fire and theft cover, which sells more cheaply on the market, actually costs the companies more than comprehensive insurance.

We need a market in risk and need to deal with the problem of moral hazard. We need the information to tackle this area of huge social cost. At Jack Short's estimate, accidents probably cost about €500 million more than we think, including the ones not reported to the Garda but found in hospital and insurance company data. We can keep putting out public campaigns and so on but we need to get behind the numbers. That is why some of those issues arise in the discussions which the Minister is going to have with the insurance industry and which the Taoiseach is having in respect of other matters.

We need insurance which encourages people to make the right choices in terms of reducing risk. We need to deal with the cost of awards in Ireland. Road safety has been improving but the average High Court and Circuit Court awards, according to Mr. Kevin Thompson of the insurance industry federation, are up 34% and 14%, respectively, in those courts. We have a whiplash problem. We have extremely high legal costs. Dorothea Dowling, who was previously the chair of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB, reckons that legal costs in Ireland add about 50% to the costs of awards. She sees a gap of over €1 billion between these awards and what would have been made by PIAB.

The cost of uninsured drivers and the failed insurance companies must also be considered. I know that has gone to the Central Bank now. How Setanta, a Maltese company, got to cost Irish road users €92 million I just do not know. There may be court cases pending on it. As we found in the banking inquiry, which mercifully reports tomorrow, we have an insurance industry which needs a stricter set of controls and to provide the information with which we can make better decisions. That is the purpose of the amendment.