Secretarial assistants and insurance crisis
Senator Gavan pressed again for action on secretarial assistants’ pay and warned that the Government must not delay any longer. Senator Mulherin then condemned insurance companies and said the industry is crippling motorists, businesses and crèches.
I want to thank everybody for their patience and perseverance during the year, particularly the staff, the Leas-Chathaoirleach, the Leader and the Cathaoirleach, and to wish everybody a happy Christmas.
At the risk of sounding like Boris Johnson, can we get something done for the secretarial assistants? It is great that everyone signed the motion and it is fantastic we got the support. The pay rises have been outstanding for over a year and it is in the Government's hands to deal with this. I ask the Leader to ensure it is done. We cannot let these people down beyond the end of this parliamentary term.
On Christmas Day, Mohammed Ramadan and Husain Moosa are due to be executed. It is what Bahrain likes to do; it is a good day to bury bad news. These two men have been framed and forced to confess to terrorist charges. They were arrested without warrant, tortured into confessions and denied access to legal counsel. They are both due to be executed on Christmas Day by the Bahraini authorities.
Bahrain is one of the most wicked regimes anywhere in the world in terms of how it treats migrant workers - it is basically a slave economy - and how it treats women. If a woman gives birth in Bahrain, unless she is married to a Bahraini national, her children have no right to Bahraini citizenship. Yet, the Minister of State, Deputy Pat Breen, was out there last month, talking about the wonderful dynamic economy in Bahrain and how we can contribute to developing business with it. There was no mention of human rights, no mention of torture, and no mention of the fact two men are due to be executed - shot, most probably - on Christmas Day.
I am calling for a debate on the issue of Bahrain and on the broader issue of our foreign relations. This Government has lost its moral compass. We have seen how it has behaved in regard to Senator Frances Black's Bill, where it was appalling to see a Government standing up for an apartheid regime. Here, we have one of the most wicked regimes in the world, yet we see that our Minister of State is willing to ignore all sorts of horrific human rights abuses and just go touting for trade and business. Surely to God, any Government should be better than that.
Comment on this
I want to join the wide condemnation of insurance companies and to call out their carry-on. Everybody is supposed to be sitting at the table, including the Minister and all the stakeholders, to try to find a resolution to the crisis in the insurance industry, which is crippling motorists, businesses and crèches, and taking money out of people's pockets with the premia they have to pay.
The most recent report published by the Central Bank showed the insurance companies have no bona fides in this regard. They keep pointing to fraudulent claims and the size of awards. Everything is pointed at except the fact that, so long as they are nursing their profits, they do not mind. It is quite shocking that premia on motor policies have gone up by 42% in the last ten years when the cost of those claims is down 2.5%.
I support the Minister in his efforts. The insurance companies have to be made accountable for their carry-on. I believe that, on the whole, we have to look at the amount that is being awarded in claims, given we know we are ahead of averages in many other countries. The law of negligence and the duty of care are very broad, and to try to curtail that is another issue. However, if people think they are in a position to argue they have been failed in a duty of care towards them, whether by a council or some other public body or private business, they will always do that. It is about the amounts they are getting. People have gone to the courts and have seen what others got money for, and have seen that was not a fraudulent claim. If people trip over their own feet but someone else was the cause, they could be compensated. The fact there has been much more coverage of this by the media means people might think this is fraud. It is not fraud; it is the way the law of our land is. Either we cap it and get to grips with it, and deal with these insurance companies which are putting money in their back pockets, or we will be putting a great amount of trouble on our citizens.