Brennan calls on insurance firms to show claims drop

INSURANCE companies were challenged yesterday by Minister for Transport Seamus Brennan to open their books and show how penalty points have reduced claims from car crashes.

Following 12 deaths on the road at the weekend, insurance industry representatives warned of higher premiums if the level of fatalities continued to rise.

According to Irish Insurance Federation spokesman Martin Long the threat of penalty points is wearing off and insurance companies can only deliver reduced premiums if costs are reduced.

Road deaths for May and June were 35% higher than for the same period last year, following reductions in the first four months of this year.

But defending penalty points, Mr Brennan said insurance claims had dropped as a result of the system and motorists should reap the benefit.

“I would ask them to open their books and show us the reduction in claims they have had since the day penalty points were introduced. I believe that reduction is substantial and they should be passing that reduction on and supporting the penalty points system,” he said.

Also yesterday, it was claimed that investing an extra €1 million into an integrated penalty points computer system would result in tens of millions being saved in fewer road deaths and serious injuries.

The chairman of the National Safety Council, Eddie Shaw, also said three years had been lost as a result of infighting between the Departments of Finance and Justice.

“We had a road safety strategy which ended last December, over a five-year period. Three years of that strategy was really wasted in squabbling between the Department of Finance and the Department of Justice, fighting over whether it was appropriate to put four or six people into the development of an IT system,” he said.

Mr Brennan will press the issue of high-visibility policing on roads with senior gardaí at a meeting this week.

Speaking on RTÉ radio, Mr Shaw said both garda enforcement and a computerised system were needed.

“The answer to this is not just more gardaí on the road, the answer to this is the automated IT system, integrating the inputting and processing of images, the assessment of the penalty, the issuing the documentation and the linking to the courts.”

He said Finance Minister Charlie McCreevy needed to invest money to do this. “We’re not talking about huge numbers. Put it this way, suppose it is one, two or three million, what’s that to the €60m, €80m or €100m that is being saved in financial terms because of the number of lives that are being avoided, and the number of injuries avoided.”

He said up to 70 lives had been saved between November and February, compared to the previous year. In addition there were 350 fewer serious injuries. He said that the cost of a death was put at €1m while that of a serious injury was estimated to be €165,000. This translated into a saving of €70m and €58m respectively since penalty points were introduced at the end of last October.

A Finance Department of Finance spokeswoman said they were not aware of any squabbling with the Department of Justice.

A Justice Department spokesman said that they had written to the Department of Finance in December 1998 requesting sanction for four IT systems analysts.

He said: “Discussions on the issue continued with the Department of Finance and the matter was eventually resolved when sanction for two of the four posts was granted. The staff were put in place in May 2001.”