Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 22 February 2022
17. Deputy Ruairí Ó Murchú asked the Minister for Finance the status of his plans to address the rising cost of and limited access to public liability insurance; the detail of his recent engagements with an organisation (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9473/22]
View answer28. Deputy Cormac Devlin asked the Minister for Finance if he will report on his engagement with an organisation (details supplied). [9682/22]
View answerWhat are the plans of the Minister to address the rising cost of and limited access to public liability insurance? What recent engagements has he had with the insurance industry, Insurance Ireland and his office to promote competition in the insurance market? I think he would struggle to find a company offering bouncy castles that has insurance. We have reached that doomsday scenario where they are operating without insurance because we have not been able to bridge the gap.
I propose to take Questions Nos. 17 and 28 together.
As the Deputy is aware, insurance reform is a priority for the Government, with the establishment of the office to promote competition in the insurance market representing an important action within the overall reform agenda. One of the roles of the office, which I chair, is to engage with insurance industry stakeholders. The office held more than 60 meetings with a wide range of groups in 2021 and earlier this year.
The Deputy referred to a particular sector. Fáilte Ireland produced extensive reports and helped fund and establish tourism products that deal with adventure sports.
That organisation is up and running. It is encouraging people in the tourism adventure sport area to come together collectively as a group, work through a broker, and then approach insurance companies rather than them being picked off one by one by the major insurance companies. They are now approaching these insurance companies through a broker with ten, 20 or 30 similar type businesses around the country and are able to get insurance on that basis. Many of them have been very successful.
I accept that there are some companies out there, small operators that may not be part of that particular group at this time, but the arrangement mentioned is proving very successful already. There are similar areas in high risk. I can think of the equestrian centres, pony clubs, and point-to-point races which had major problems with insurance over the past six months. They have come together collectively as a group rather than individual point-to-point clubs seeking to get their own personal insurance for their own riders and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine was helpful in that respect. Most of these activities are back up and running. Some of the point-to-point races and pony club activities commenced on 1 February, which did not look possible in November. There has been great progress in some of the areas specifically referred to by the Deputy.
Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit. I accept that there have been advances and these are to be welcomed. I am talking specifically about a number of companies operating in the leisure industry that probably run very large events. They are breaking their companies into individual parts. If they are dealing with marquees, they are keeping that separate. They cannot in any way, shape or form, and I am talking specifically here about bouncy castles, get these covered. That means that local authorities, for example, and community organisations and centres that want to run events for children will not be able to do that or use these sort of services into the future. We have looked at options and are still working with Insurance Ireland and others from the point of view of trying to get a broker and to deal with regulation. I have met the Minister of State previously on this issue and the problem is that we are past the doomsday situation. These people are operating, many of them very well, using best practice but they just cannot get insurance.
I thank the Deputy again for consistently raising this issue because it is a very important sector of the Irish business environment. There has been great success in the reduced premiums in motor insurance and the same is happening in house insurance this year. On 1 July we will have new price-walking measures introduced by the Central Bank which will have immediate effect. People will receive notifications of their renewals. People who have been charged what I would call a loyalty penalty up to now, from mid-May of this year in just a couple of weeks' time, will see the benefit of that loyalty penalty being dealt with effectively by the Central Bank on policies that come to be renewed after 1 July.
I acknowledge the work of Insurance Ireland and Brokers Ireland. Everybody knows that this House and the Department of Finance has no role in the market. It is a private sector business but I will say that we are very open to refer people to both Insurance Ireland and Brokers Ireland to see what commercial arrangements they can make themselves. Again, this has proven very successful.
There have been a number of pieces that have been dealt with legislatively here but we still have failings around the fact that the duty of care legislation has not been brought in. That is a major part of this. We have all seen situations such as in my own constituency involving community centres; there may be a claim against two or three parties using a centre and, although the centre itself may never be taken to court, because the incident may have happened on its premises it has seen its premiums go up by something like €10,000, which is utterly unsustainable. The fact is that we do not have enough players in the market. We have to do some serious work. There is an onus on Government in this. I have dealt with the Minister of State and am dealing with other Ministers around this and we will try to get a solution but we really need the Government to put its shoulder to the wheel on this. We could have a situation where children could get injured, or whatever, and are dealing with companies that are operating best practice but do not have insurance because they cannot get insurance.
I thank the Deputy again. I could deal with a wide range of issues but I will try to concentrate on the specific area that the Deputy has mentioned. Duty of care is an absolute priority and is being dealt with. We will have proposals on that in the immediate future. The Department of Justice is seized of that issue, having successfully brought forward the personal injury guidelines last year. All of the claims going through the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB, are stood over by the Government and PIAB, and are showing reductions of 40% in those areas. Some people are not happy and some will be challenged in court but those figures are holding firm. The duty of care legislation is being dealt with specifically in the areas the Deputy has mentioned.
In respect of community events, I have seen some of the major insurance companies offering to deal with some of those, like community bicycle and cycling groups. Recently another company publicly announced that it is dealing with some social employment scheme in regard to activities that it is running. There is a great deal of information available through Insurance Ireland and Brokers Ireland.
