Castlebar based Candidate for People Before Profit standing in the Mayo constituency Joe Daly has called for a Public Car Insurance Company to be created in light of the latest CSO figures which show that car insurance is now rising at 15 times the rate of inflation and 11% in the past year alone.

Mr Daly stated that “Irish motorists continue to be ripped off by the private insurance companies even though Garda figures show that the costs of claims have been decreasing in recent years.”

“The real reason for this rip off is the chaotic, profit driven insurance system which is a direct consequence of outsourcing the provision of insurance to the private sector. The big insurance companies gambled on financial speculation during the celtic tiger and they continue to force consumers to pay higher insurance to restore their profits”

Mr Daly continued by questioning inaction by the Government saying that “The government TDs claim that the only way for premiums to drop is to bring more competition into the market but we already have 12 different private car insurance companies so clearly competition isn’t the answer. The real problem is that successive Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael led governments have allowed these companies to squeeze customers and discriminate against young drivers so we think it is high time we followed the example of the Canadian state of Manitoba and created a public car insurance company which would provide affordable car insurance to all based on a not for profit model”

We could fund this new public insurance company with a millionaires tax on wealth over the value of €4.7million excluding the family home and the family farm which would only affect 1% of the richest in society and bring in €8 Billion next year alone.