asked the Minister for Industry, Trade, Commerce and Tourism the steps the Government have taken following the recommendations of the Prices Advisory Committee inquiry into motor insurance and the future steps they propose to take in relation to motor insurance generally.

I outlined the steps taken to implement these recommendations in my reply to a similar question by the Deputy on 25 October 1984. Since then, the Motor Insurance Advisory Board have been established to advise me on matters relating to motor insurance including loadings, premium rates and availability of cover.

The draft order requiring insurance brokers to show service charges separately when billing clients has been laid before both Houses and has been approved by the Seanad; I hope to have this order approved by the Dáil shortly.

Other Ministers have various other measures in hands including, for example, the windscreen disc for insurance in respect of which the Minister for the Environment had made regulations.

I will continue to keep under active examination the question of further action in this area.

Is the Minister aware that one in every five motorists on the road today is uninsured? Would he agree with me that some very bold initiatives must be taken to deal with what could be loosely called a national scandal? Can he indicate now what steps he proposes to take to implement the report that has been in his office for the past two years detailing means of dealing with this very great difficulty?

The House will be aware of the press release issued in 1983 in the name of the then Minister outlining the steps the Government had decided to take in relation to this very difficult area. Of the 22 recommendations over 11 have either been implemented or are in the course of implementation. This Government have taken more steps in this insurance area than the party opposite ever even contemplated in their many years in Government.

The only steps the present Government have taken——

A question.

——since they came into office were steps backward. If, as the Minister of State says, 22 recommendations were put to him and he is in the course of implementing 11 of them, what progress has been made to bring about a reduction in the number of uninsured if these steps are so successful?

Many of the recommendations are the responsibility of other Departments, so I cannot comment on them. I am satisfied that the steps now being taken by the Government will go some way towards the resolution of this problem, but one must say that citizens of this country have a responsibility to obey the laws of the land and take care that they themselves have insurance. Why should everyone look to Government to resolve what is in effect the responsibility of the citizens in their own care in matters on insurance and particularly in the matter of motor insurance?

It is depressing to hear the Minister of State reneging on his responsibility.

It is a responsibility which the Deputy's party never took up.