Insurance fraud is now punishable with fines of up to €100,000, and/or prison for up to ten years, warns Detective Sergeant Alan Govern of the Garda National Economic Crime Bureau.

A number of suspected fraudulent insurance claims have been withdrawn before going to court after a crackdown by gardaí.

Even in a country where constructive ambiguities are almost as important as water or oxygen our well-established culture of legislate-and-ignore seems a hypocrisy too far; an institutionalised three-card trick that indulges the less attractive sides of our character.

One of the country’s largest insurers has said it is investigating “organised rings” of people staging car crashes around the country, with potential claims of more than €3m in just two counties.