Richard O'Donoghue: Fury Over Insurance Hikes and Health Waits
Richard O'Donoghue warned that rising insurance and healthcare costs are hitting ordinary households, citing county-by-county car premium differences, soaring home rebuild valuations and long public consultant waits. He urged the minister to intervene, cap premiums and hold insurers to account so people can afford cover.
County-by-county car insurance
He recounted a case where a woman who moved from Tipperary to County Limerick was charged €179 more to renew the same car policy despite being the same driver and vehicle. He said computerised assessments price insurance by county, producing different quotes in Galway, Kerry, Tipperary and Limerick rather than a single national approach.
Rising home insurance and rebuild costs
He described how rebuild valuations have jumped, using a 1,000-square-foot house as an example where a rebuild cost valuation rose from €140,000 to €240,000. Those higher rebuild valuations, he said, are driving up house insurance premiums even though the property itself has not changed.
Health insurance and public waiting times
He said people are buying private health insurance out of fear of long public waits, telling of a man told he could wait six to 12 months — or up to two years — to see a consultant if he used public services. He argued these delays are pushing ordinary citizens toward private cover to avoid lengthy waits.
Inflation, wages and accountability
He warned that wage increases without controls will fuel inflation, push up prices across sectors and raise taxes without improving public services. He called on the minister to "stand up", stop the inflationary pressure, cap premiums and make insurers accountable so families can live with reliable cover.
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Minister, I met a man during the week and he got married and he married a woman from Tipperary. This is actually laughable. The same woman that he married from Tipperary came into Limerick County. She's insured the same company for the last 20 years and when she went to renew her premium because she moved to County Limerick to charge her 179 euros more. Same car, same person, just because she got married and she moved to County Limerick. So we asked and tried to find out what was the reasoning for this. The reason for this is it's all down to computers, assessments and doing insurance on each different county, whatever they are, assessment on claims within an area. Whether you're in the city or the county, it doesn't matter, you're within that county bounds and that's what it says. Is an insurance company not supposed to cover all of Ireland and not just single out individual places? So if you go to Galway you get one quote, if you go to Kerry you get another quote, if you go to Tipperary you get another quote and if you go to Limerick you get a different quote. All different quotes for different counties. How can that be possible Minister? That's on care insurance. You then go to house insurance where the value of your property in the four years because inflation has jumped from a thousand square foot house was 120,000 was the valuation they put on it. Rebuild cost 140,000. That's only a thousand square foot house. That same house now is on 240,000 rebuild cost. It's the same house that was there 10 years ago but they were down to rebuild costs. So you pay higher premiums. Same house, higher premiums. You then go to health insurance, same thing. Up, up, up. But the ordinary person pays more. You can rise the minimum wage and you can rise all the different wages as high as you like and all they're going to do is drive inflation and put more taxes into the government pocket for them to waste on non-delivery. That's what's happening. They drive inflation, we pay double the price for the same product and we get less from government. That's not something for you to smile about. I see you smiling a minute ago. You're not smiling now because of delivery. Why? Do you think if I went out tomorrow morning and took on a project and I'm building all my life and I came in a loss to be in business today but you can come in a loss on every single project, every single project and you're still here. And all you're doing is raising taxes, raising everything and getting no value for money. So no matter what you do with people's wages, you're pricing the motor market on every sector. And not only that, you're allowing all the insurance sectors to do the same. So when you're looking at insurance for people, for viability, people now said that my children, Richard, I'm afraid in case something's happening, I need to pay for private insurance because I'm afraid they won't get help. Because they said if I go public, I could be waiting for six or eight months. I have a person rang me last night. He's four o'clock. He went and met the consultant. The consultant told him that he'd have to wait between six and 12 months to be seen and he's four o'clock. And he's paying for private insurance. And he said if you were public, he said you could be waiting up to two years. And we can stand here and allow this to go on and on and on and no accountability. Minister, this has to stop. It has to stop somewhere. The inflationary on every sector across the board has to stop. And you as Minister, stand up and say no. Stand up and tell them stop. Stand up and cap them and make them accountability for people so they can live and have cover. Thank you.
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