Action Plan for Insurance Reform: Statements
Seanad Éireann — 2026-05-13
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Garret Ahearn (FG), Administrative Panel

The Minister of State is very welcome to the Chamber. I thank him for being here for such an important debate. I acknowledge the work that my colleague, Senator Nelson Murray, has done on this over the past 18 months since becoming a Senator. She has been a champion on this issue and has represented her own views and the views of our party extremely strongly. She has worked with the Minister of State’s Department since becoming a Senator to try to deliver change in insurance policy that could benefit small businesses, in particular, right across the country. We have to acknowledge that there have been improvements in certain areas, such as the amendments to the personal injury guidelines, the reform of the occupier’s duty of care, the strengthening of the Injuries Resolution Board, the creation of the national claims information database and the Garda insurance fraud co-ordination office, and the continued focus on insurance reform through successive action plans like the most recent one. These things are important and they matter, but the next phase is to make sure the benefits are actually felt by policyholders.
When it comes to liability, the Central Bank data shows that important savings are being made in the claims environment but many policyholders are still seeing premiums rise. They are seeing reduced choice, higher excesses and new exclusions. The challenge now is to ensure that the savings are passed on, unnecessary legal costs are reduced, competition is improved and the new action plan is implemented with the urgency and ambition that is required to support policyholders.
If we are touching on one aspect of insurance, the obvious one that most people right across the country understand is motor insurance. People can clearly see whether insurance has gone up or down. Unfortunately, we have seen a 4% increase in insurance since 2024. It is almost a fifth higher than in 2022. That is a significant increase. We are talking about making changes and the reforms that are being delivered to bring insurance costs down but the public are still seeing their insurance costs going up. It is hard to be credible when they are getting a letter in the post once a year to say their motor insurance has gone up. The argument has been made that a lot of it has to do with claims for damage and the rise in repair costs due to inflation. That is understandable but that cannot be a reason in itself for why insurance costs are going up for everyone across the country. This is a very serious matter that impacts on everyone across the country, be it for motor insurance, home insurance and in particular for businesses. Sometimes for businesses it is a case of taking a decision to open or not and whether to keep the business going based on a letter that comes telling them how much insurance they have to pay for a year. That should not be the case.
It is good the Minister of State is here today to listen to contributions from across the House. We will certainly work with him going forward, led by Senator Nelson Murray on this. It really comes back to the very basic fact that if we are talking about making changes in insurance to help small businesses and policyholders across the country, that can only be credible if insurance costs are going down. That needs to be our ultimate goal as a Government.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-05-13/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:56+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-05-13