The European Commission yesterday announced an investigation into the insurance industry in Ireland. Two Private Members' motions have also been passed by our party regarding this issue in the last year. It is now time that the Government, and everybody, took this issue seriously. There has been much talk about what is being done, yet evidence of rising costs has been produced on the floor of this House in recent weeks in respect of summer festivals and voluntary groups setting out their stalls for events. The insurance industry is choking the country. I know of an example where one person's insurance has gone from €1,000 to €24,000 in a specific area over four years. That is crazy. I do not believe the Government is taking this whole issue of insurance seriously. It is time that it did.

I assure Deputy Michael Moynihan that the Government is taking this issue very seriously. The Minister of State, Deputy D'Arcy, has been taking responsibility for this. He has led an initiative that has, from memory, 33 actions, including legislation actions, to bring about change in this area. There has also been an improvement in the operation of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board, PIAB. Issues remain to be addressed, however, and the Minister of State is continuing his work. We need far greater data transparency from the insurance sector so we can see exactly what is happening.

The EU has stepped in to raise questions about whether the data sharing initiative is acting to impede competition. While no findings have been made at this point, that is an important investigation. I assure the Deputy that we will be continuing to scrutinise every aspect of this issue, including the legal costs, the fraud elements and the data sharing. All of those aspects are being scrutinised by the Government with a view to resolving this matter. As the Taoiseach stated earlier, however, it is the insurance companies that must decide what premia they quote. The Government cannot tell insurance companies to set premia, so we have to operate on the framework to make it as effective as possible.