Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister of State on keeping to his word and coming before the committee on a quarterly basis. It is a useful exercise in terms of evaluating where we are. However, it does not fill me with confidence. It appears to me that the tail is wagging the dog in the context of the insurance industry. The insurance companies continue to laugh at us. It is obvious that it appears to them that they got away with it. We had our consultation and examination but things go on with business as usual. That is the bottom line in evaluating all of this.

It concerns me that the Minister of State appears to be congratulating us on the stabilisation of the market. Prices went to extortionate levels such that saying we have stabilised at that level is an abject failure and it shows a complete market failure. We need to look at reversal. In the case of all the people I have talked to who have received insurance premiums of late, the amounts have increased. I do not know of one person who has had an insurance premium reduced. In the light of all the work we did last year, I am seriously concerned that we are not having any impact. I am not referring to stabilisation but reversal.

I am concerned about the setting up of fora. I realise what the Minister of State is trying to achieve but it almost amounts to making things more obscure. Certainly, it is not making things more transparent. The ethos running through the insurance report we produced was that things should be more transparent and that people could see what was happening.

Has the Minister of State given serious consideration to examining properly the different models? Has he considered running what would almost be a parallel system? Has he given serious thought into the different models or to introducing a State-backed rival offer of competition? New Zealand has a no-fault model with a compulsory scheme for personal injuries. Under the Australian model, compulsory third-party insurance is included in the vehicle registration. Under the model in Quebec, the public insurer manages the insurance regime for bodily injuries only. That is my first question. I believe we have given enough time to the insurance companies to show some kind of gesture in reducing the rates, but they have failed to do that thus far.