March 2003

- by Bill Trapman

Call for restrictions on penalty points info

06 March 2003: The National Youth Council of Ireland (NYCI) is calling on the Táiniste and Minister for Transport to impose strict preconditions on any access to penalty points by the insurance industry.

The Council has said that industry promises to freeze premiums at current levels is insufficient and that motorists deserve real reductions.

Responding to reports that active consideration was been given to making penalty points available to insurance companies, an NYCI spokesperson said that until guarantees are given that penalty points would be the overriding criterion for calculating insurance premiums, access to this data should not be granted to the insurance industry.

Colm Ó Mongáin, NYCI's Press Officer, added that young drivers with clean records would still be penalised for their age if the industry were given access to the penalty points and that this must change before any information was handed over.

"I have contacted the Irish Insurance Federation and they have told me that this is their intention," Mr Ó Mongáin said.

NYCI urged the Government to forge ahead with the establishment of the Personal Injuries Assessment Board and welcomed moves towards discouraging fraudulent claims, which 'had grown out of a failure to challenge such claims in the past and a willingness to pay out rather than nip fraud in the bud'.

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