168. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the operating profits of motor insurance companies and public and employer liability insurance using a standard definition of operating profits, that is, after paying all business expenses but before tax and interest deductions from 2020 to 2025, by year; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [73162/25]
Sentiment score: 0.26
I raise with the Minister the profits that insurance companies are making in Ireland. When we talk of profit margins, we are talking specifically about operating profits, which, as we all know, have a specific meaning that is well understood internationally. It is always before tax and interest deductions. Will the Minister set out the operating profits of motor insurance companies and in the public and employer liability insurance market using this standard definition?
Sentiment score: 0.49
The Minister knows I am raising this because of the invaluable reportage we get from the Central Bank every year that is reported upon and understood by us. It has its own definition of operating profits. When we talk about the operating profits of any company, that means operating profits before tax or interest is deducted. That is the standard definition. The Central Bank uses its own definition which has under-reported the profits of the insurance industry by not using the standard definition. In the past five years the Central Bank has under-reported operating profits just in the motor sector by €114 million. This is money that is extracted from people to keep their cars on the road. Will the Minister for Finance engage? The Central Bank is transparent. It has its own definition and all the rest. It is not doing anything different there. However, when people see operating profits they think it is the way that it is reported right throughout the world but the Central Bank has used a different definition. Will the Minister engage for the sake of transparency and a common understanding of what profit this industry is making? These profits, which we all thought were very high, are now even higher than what we understood before.
Sentiment score: 0.27
Will the Minister provide those?
Sentiment score: 0.00
I appreciate that. I have engaged with the Central Bank in relation to this and it has provided me with the operating profits as commonly understood for motor insurance. It did not have them for the public liability. This is why I welcome this. This shows us two things. The insurance companies are making bumper profits. We know from the National Claims Information Database, NCID, reports that they are making three times what they told us they were targeting. However, it is worse than that because the Central Bank is using a definition of operating profit that nobody else uses. It makes that clear in the report but that is in the subtext. We need to be using standard definitions here. If we were using the standard definitions, these companies are making bigger profits. Instead of making 14% in one year, they are making 16%. This is the same in motor and in public liability. This is millions and millions of additional euro in profits. In motor insurance alone, it is a €114 million difference between using the Central Bank definition or the definition that everybody else uses. It is really important that this industry is called out for the price gouging that is going on and the bumper profits that are being made. The Central Bank does great work but it should not be using its own definition of operating profits. These figures get reported faithfully by the media and people understand it as something that it is not.
Sentiment score: 0.23
170. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the updated projections from his Department in the wake of recent CSO inflation figures; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [73720/25]
Sentiment score: 0.01
Last week, the CSO published inflation figures of 3.2%. That is the highest rate we have seen in almost two years and way above what the Department of Finance projected on budget day. At that time, it was projected that we would be looking at an inflation rate for this year of 1.8%, which is starting to look like wishful thinking. How were the Department's projections so far off? Has the Tánaiste asked the Deputy to update them?
Sentiment score: 0.07
People are being crucified as a result of the cost-of-living crisis. I have raised this with the Tánaiste time and again. Inflation is going back up and is eating away at workers' wages. It is leaving households struggling to make ends meet. Real wages declined in 2022 and 2023. They only increased by 0.1% in 2024. We are in danger of seeing the same again in 2025. The Tánaiste has made the point repeatedly about wages outpacing inflation. Over the past three months, however, we have again seen inflation outpacing wages. Inflation is going up higher than wages. This year, the Government brought forward a budget based on certain inflation projections. It appears those projections are no longer credible. The Government delivered a budget in 2025 where it thought inflation was going to be 1.8% this year and the CSO is telling us it is nearly double that. It is estimating it at 3.2%. Surely there is a need to revise what the Government has done. People are being fleeced, and the Government expected something very different from what is actually happening.
Sentiment score: -0.06
I will go back over that again. I have not disputed that is the case in 2025; I am saying we may end up with it not being the case before the end of the year, because for the past three months, inflation has been outpacing wages. There are warning bells going off all around the place. Inflation stands at 3.2%. It was projected to be 1.8%. The Government delivered a budget. The Tánaiste is the guy who signed off on that and who brought the Finance Bill through this House. The ESRI has been very clear that everybody is worse off. Let me qualify that - developers, bankers and speculators are not worse off. People with extreme wealth are not worse off. The ESRI, looking at its models, said the Government has left families and workers worse off. It is there in black and white. How the Government was able to pull that trick off in a €9.4 billion budget goes beyond me. That budget was based on inflation rates but they are higher in reality than was projected on budget day. I am probably hitting my head against a brick wall here, but the Government really needs to revise this because there are people who are really struggling and it has left them high and dry this Christmas.
Sentiment score: -0.01
172. Deputy Pearse Doherty asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Finance the steps being taken to address the situation where banks are maintaining high mortgage interest rates in order to maintain high profits; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [73721/25]
Sentiment score: 0.24
I have raised this issue with the Tánaiste over and over again. It is clear that people are being ripped off. I wonder whether that is the assessment of the Tánaiste, as Minister for Finance, or does he think it is okay that banks make €5 billion in profits and charge higher interest rates than the average in the EU. That is where they are making their money. It is not due to huge innovations. It is because of the European Central Bank, ECB, interest rate in the main that these banks are making the profits they are making. This means a lot to families. Percentages relating to large mortgages - and I spoke earlier about the runaway house prices and people being forced into huge mortgages - mean thousands of euro each year. We cannot have a Minister who is simply impotent in this regard. On the one hand, the Government is getting rid of the pay caps for the CEO and selling off the stakes while, on the other hand, customers are basically abandoned. Is there anything the Minister plans to do to ensure banks pass on reduced interest rates to their customers instead of gouging them?
Sentiment score: 0.21
Deputy O'Callaghan made the point. To tell us that interests have dropped 0.2% in a year on weighted average, when the ECB has reduced interest rates seven or eight times in the past 16 months, is a nonsense argument.
Sentiment score: -0.03
It is a nonsense argument. The banks should be reducing their interest rates beyond the rate they are offering at this time. The ECB has given them the flexibility to do that by reducing the rate. I am not expecting them to be passed on percentage by percentage, but there is no doubt that Irish banks are creaming it off the backs of mortgage holders and the Tánaiste is doing nothing about it. His predecessor did nothing about it, and the Tánaiste's response here is that he will not do anything about it. All he is saying to the public is that he is looking for competition, that we have to get another bank. What will he actually do about AIB and Bank of Ireland making a €5 billion profit when everyone in this Chamber knows it is being made as a result of high interest rates that should not be charged to Irish consumers. Consumers and families are being forced to take out mortgages at huge rates because of Government policies.
Sentiment score: -0.00
Can I raise a point of order? I would like clarification because I was not aware of this. Are we allowed to ask supplementary questions on priority questions?
Sentiment score: 0.12
It was provided for there in the last question. Priority questions are protected, as far as I know today, from other Members interfering in them.
Sentiment score: 0.22
That is okay. I was not sure if it had changed or not, genuinely.
Sentiment score: -0.01
Exactly.
Sentiment score: 0.00