asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if, in view of the agitation which has arisen among the motoring community over the recent notification of increases in premiums for motor insurance, he will set up machinery for reinsurance envisaged under the Insurance Act, 1936, and thus make available a national system of reinsurance to those who are contemplating the formation of mutual insurance co-operatives.
Ceisteanna—Questions. Oral Answers. - Motor Insurance Premiums.
I do not think that the consideration to which the Deputy refers makes it necessary or desirable that Part VI of the Insurance Act, 1936, should be brought into operation. I am not aware what type of organisation the Deputy has in mind in the last part of his question, but I have no reason to think that adequate reinsurance facilities are not available under the existing law.
Is it not a fact that if people want to go into this type of insurance at the moment they must lodge £15,000?
The Deputy's question relates to reinsurance, I thought. It is a fact that, under the Insurance Act, 1936, people proposing to undertake the insurance business must make a deposit.
Are not foreign insurance companies in a very strong position to keep the Irish people from forming a company covering motor insurance?
The purpose of the 1936 Act was to obtain the opposite result.
asked the Minister for Industry and Commerce if he has received a resolution from the executive committee of the Private Motorists' Protection Association to the effect that the official inquiry into the impending motor insurance increases at present proposed to be held in the near future be made a public inquiry, at which the views of interested parties may be voiced, and further, that these increases in rates be held in abeyance pending the issue of the public inquiry's findings; and, if so, if he proposes to take any steps to implement this resolution.
I have received a copy of the resolution referred to in the question. The Prices Advisory Body is inquiring into the justification of the proposed increases in premiums for motor vehicle insurance and has advised me that, on the information before it at present, it proposes to hold part of the inquiry in public, at which interested parties will be invited to give evidence. As regards the postponement of the increases in premiums, I would refer the Deputy to my reply to Deputy Cosgrave an 22nd November, 1951.