Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
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129. To ask the Minister for Justice and Equality if she will provide an update on the establishment of a new fraud database as set out in the report of the cost of insurance working group and its 33 recommendations; if additional staff will be hired for this unit; the intended budget to be allocated; the way this information will be gathered and stored; and if she will make a statement on the matter. [9544/17]

Frances Fitzgerald (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael)
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As Deputy will be aware, the Department of Finance published the 'Report on the Cost of Motor Insurance' in January this year. One of the recommendations (No. 25), which my Department has taken the lead on, is to establish a fully functioning integrated fraud database for industry to detect patterns of fraud. The purpose of the Database is to reduce levels of fraud by providing access to details of incident data which can be used to detect patterns of potentially fraudulent behaviour.

In order to determine the parameters of the database to be established and consider the policy and legislative issues, as well as funding, access and content, a Working Group has been established. The deadline for this scoping exercise is the end of June 2017, when the Group will submit a report to the Working Group on the Cost of Insurance, which is chaired by Minister of State, Eoghan Murphy, T.D. If it is determined, following this initial scoping exercise, that a database is a viable option, then a further exercise will be carried out to put the necessary legislative and other measures in place to facilitate it.