Gerry Horkan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am not going to go on long. I am going to wrap it up shortly. I notice that Senators Noone and Colm Burke have not put their names to the Second Stage motion on this Bill. To the best of my knowledge, they are both members of the legal profession. I am intrigued to know why their names are not on the list. Maybe it is just a typo. It is interesting that 18 of the 20 Fine Gael Senators have put their names to this motion, but two of them have not. Perhaps Senator Lawlor might explain why the two Senators in question have not put their names to it. Maybe it is because they are legal people. Maybe they do not think it is something they can sign up to. They might think there is a constitutionality issue or something or maybe they just did not manage to put their names to the motion.

There are many other things we can do in this area. I appreciate that the Minister, Deputy Flanagan, is not the Minister who has been dealing with insurance generally. However, I am sure this issue, like many other issues, comes across his desk. The Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, has been dealing with the cost of insurance working group and many other tasks, as did his predecessor, the Minister, Deputy Eoghan Murphy. Some of the group's proposals have been implemented but many of them have not. The Minister of State has said on a number of occasions that exaggerated claims are not fraud. I think he may have finally got around to the idea that they are fraud. While staging a claim is worse than exaggerating a claim, it is still fraud to exaggerate a claim. It involves claiming for money to which one is not entitled. Saying that one's claim is far in excess of what it should be is fraud in my book and I think it is fraud by any definition of fraud.

We need a Garda unit to investigate such cases. We need prosecutions. If one gets caught trying to rob a bank, hopefully one will be convicted and will get some kind of sentence. If one is proven to have made a fraudulent insurance claim, the claim is dropped and no payment is made but one does not face any sanction, punishment or penalty for making that false claim. Maybe there is a penalty somewhere in legislation, but it is not being followed through by anybody. That needs to be looked at as well. The incentive has to be removed from people making fraudulent claims. I appreciate that is why damages are being capped. If whiplash claims attracted payments of €2,000 rather than €17,000, I am sure some people would not make the claims they are making. It is a very lucrative market for those who want to get involved in it. I happen to have been rear-ended at one stage. I got the material damage claim for the car and I never even thought about whiplash. I think I am in the relative minority of people who do not pursue whiplash claims.

There is much work to be done by the insurance industry to fight cases harder. The legal profession should not be so willing to fight for every single claim, particularly if it considers it to be fraudulent. Of course nobody is trying to say that somebody who is entitled to a payout, having suffered an injury when the fault was not theirs, should not be looked after. That is what insurance is for. If one examines the statistics for whiplash payments in this country and elsewhere, one will find that no payments at all are made in respect of whiplash in other parts of Europe and the world. In some cases, cash is provided for care but payments of €17,000 or €18,000 are certainly not made to people who think they have a twinge or slight pain in their back. There are many examples in the public liability area of people who said nothing at all for two years - people are entitled to make claims after two years - only to arrive into a premises and say that they slipped there two years earlier. The staff may all have changed and the camera footage may all be gone because of GDPR.

There are many things we can do in the insurance area. I commend Senator Lawlor on raising this issue and tabling a Private Members' Bill. I worry about the constitutionality of the Bill as it stands. As a party, Fianna Fáil is happy to let this Bill go to Committee Stage. We have reservations about the legislation before the House, but we are prepared to discuss it. The Minister might outline whether this Bill enjoys the support of the Government. Will it require a money message at any stage? I will leave it at that for now.