Tackling insurance fraud - Cheats get a free run, we pay the price

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.

Our commitment to the rule of law, to active civic morality, is limited and what a heavy price we pay for this play-pretend foolishness.

Amazing as it may seem, we have legislation that might have chastening consequences for every bank employee involved in the tracker mortgage scams.

However, it would be even more amazing if that legislation was applied with the blindness that is supposed to characterise objective justice, the kind of justice that must be seen to be done.

We also have legislation around environmental destruction and pollution. Fines of up to €1,000,000 are applicable in the worst cases but there is no evidence that the judiciary is aware that it has such a powerful weapon at its disposal.

In too many cases, proceedings seem a patronising charade where the interests of society are, at best, an afterthought and business carries on as is usual.

We also have a Criminal Assets Bureau that seems to concentrate on limited types of crime, or crimes emanating from one strata of society, as if other crimes like fraud or gross pollution are tolerable.

Were CAB to broaden its operations, or if it had the conveniently-denied resources to do so, the impact might be transformative.

However, all of these examples of legislate-and-ignore fade into insignificance when compared to how sections of the Civil Liability and Courts Act 2004 have been ignored.

Put simply, legislation enacted by the Dáil to try to root out fraudulent insurance claims has been, in the 14 years since it was made law, not been used to deliver the objectives underpinning it.

It seems irrelevant whether this is through indifference or incompetence, the legislation may as well not exist. Hence, the protection it was to have offered society does not exist either.

The Government’s Cost of Insurance Working Group examined how the Act was applied and found “no instance of a prosecution or conviction pursuant to section 14”.

None, not even one, in the 14 years the Act has been an option. Asleep-at-the-wheel regulators once again? On Section 25, the report found “the number of recorded prosecutions and convictions for this offence is very low.”

It is important to recognise that the vast majority of court insurance claims are legitimate and that people suffer injury or loss.

Nevertheless, it is impossible to ignore actions that reek of contrived opportunism and are dropped once a determined defence is mounted. Awards made in cases where credibility is absent undermine the system.

They also, like it or not, cast the professionals on both sides of the bench, in a most unattractive light. Ignoring this legisaltion defies the wishes of our parliament and makes insurance far more expensive than it might be.

This situation could only continue in a society where deference, dysfunction and dishonesty prevail. That, however, need not be our permanent fate.