Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Senator Boyhan referred to the National Treatment Purchase Fund, NTPF, which the previous Government thought was not a particularly good idea but has reinstated. Senator Boyhan was a director of the NTPF for two terms. The NTPF did great work in the mid-2000s onwards. Given the current waiting lists, the NTPF needs to be resourced to deliver quickly to those people who have waited a long time on waiting lists for procedures. Many people are waiting for far too long, far beyond what they should be waiting, and often in great discomfort.

With regard to insurance fraud, the Alliance for Insurance Reform gave a presentation in the audiovisual room this morning, which was attended by Senators, including Senators McFadden and Mulherin. We saw very serious examples of blatant fraud such as people going into licensed premises, restaurants and shops and staging accidents. Only for the CCTV footage there would have been payouts in these cases. In many cases these incidents involve a family industry and these people are known to the Garda for staging fraud. We do not, however, have a fraud unit within An Garda Síochána to look at these cases.

The costs of insurance working group recommended such a measure and I call on the Leader to have a debate on the costs of insurance, especially fraud, and the setting up of a Garda unit that would deal with fraud and prosecute people who are shown to be bringing in false cases. We are all paying for it. Everybody is paying for these fraudulent cases. It is not just happening in motor insurance; it happens in the licensed trade, the restaurant trade and shops. There is a premises in County Mayo that had to close recently because its insurance premium had gone from €5,000 in 2014-15 to €55,000 this year. This is unsustainable and the business had to close with the loss of more than 20 jobs.

There are many other such examples around the State of premises under pressure. We have been told that street performers will not exist in the next few years because a stilt walker or a tightrope walker, for example, will not get insurance as it will become too expensive. It is a very serious issue. People are making an industry out of it.

At the briefing by the Alliance for Insurance Reform we were told of a person who had said that if he was short of cash he could rob a bank or stage an accident. He said that if a person got caught staging an accident there are no repercussions but if a person got caught robbing a bank, obviously there are. This is what some people in society are doing. It needs to be looked at.