Brazen swindlers trying to fleece us all must look at the bankers and power suppliers with envy
WHAT an incredible week for the banks and the energy industry – bumper after-tax profits of more than €2billion for AIB and confirmation that Ireland has the most expensive electricity in Europe – woo-hoo!
Champagne corks must have been popping at a rate of knots in overpriced steak restaurants across Dublin city, as top executives toasted their mega fiscal successes. Mindful that maybe not everyone was overjoyed at the news, Finance Minister Michael McGrath suggested that Irish banks might treat their customers ‘fairly’.
Despite the State currently owning 40% of AIB, he was also swift to point out there are restrictions in place that prevent him from getting involved in the day-to-day running of a bank.
In other words, he has no way of compelling them to do the right thing.
As for the electricity suppliers, this latest Household Energy Price Index commissioned by regulators in Austria and Hungary shows, yet again, that prices in Ireland are about two-thirds higher than the EU average. And that’s despite the much-hailed decreases announced in the last few months.
We pay almost €700 more than the average EU household. Our gas costs aren’t much better; we’re the sixth most expensive of the 33 countries included in the study, meaning we pay about €300 more annually compared to our average EU neighbour.
Even those with the most sunny dispositions and trusting natures must find it difficult not to come to the depressing and repetitive conclusion that we get ripped off at every turn while profits soar for canny shareholders.
It’s been going on for years. And that feeling of being taken for a fool can do funny things to some people.
Of course there will always be the dishonest, unrepentant cheats who think nothing of swindling money out of the State via undeserved benefits, or throwing in insurance claims for bogus injuries or accidents in the hope of hitting paydirt.
The sheer audaciousness can leave you oscillating between disgust and awe at their utter brazenness.
Kamila Grabska, with her perfectly apt surname, made international headlines last week when it emerged that her €760,000 claim for injuries allegedly suffered in a car crash, was thrown out of the High Court, sitting in Limerick.
The 36-year-old, from Ennis, Co. Clare, was photographed a few months after the accident lobbing a five-foot Christmas tree into the air at a charity competition, which she actually won, making rubbish of her claims of being unable to work for more than five years or play with her children.
Judge Carmel Stewart deemed the medical evidence before the court as being ‘completely at odds’ with the Christmas tree-throwing victory and concluded the claims by mother-of-two were ‘entirely exaggerated’.
This week, taxi driver Talal Khan abandoned his €60,000 personal injury claim against an 80-year-old woman whom he alleged had driven her car into his legs four times after rearending his vehicle.
It turned out Khan, with an address in Lucan, Co. Dublin, had made the exact same allegations against one of six other motorists he had brought damages claims against. And the court heard that he’d refused to reveal how much money he’d been awarded in his previous compensation cases.
Upon hearing the taxi man had decided to withdraw his claim, the judge said it was a very sensible approach and that he wasn’t going to divulge anything he might have said otherwise.
And these are just the tip of the iceberg, as one of the solicitors involved explained: ‘The reality is that these types of claims are happening in courts across Ireland most weeks, but aren’t always reported on.’
PROFESSOR Gabrielle Colleran, whom I interviewed this week about the extraordinary rise in medical negligence cases in Ireland – €3billion worth of payouts since 2012 – was careful not to speculate about what percentage of the claims might be bogus. But she pointed to Australia, where once the system was tightened up, 50% of the cases simply ‘melted away’.
Of course, it’s become something of an industry here now, like in America, with which we share the same dubious status with as being global outliers in the litigation game. And big payouts mean big business, one that will be difficult to uproot.
Besides, if established and integral institutions are allowed to continue making huge profits off ordinary customers already struggling in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis, why shouldn’t there be a mechanism available to make a quick buck? It can be easy to convince yourself that it’s only the insurance companies who lose out.
And so on it goes, the dirty cycle of shakedowns and deceit. There’s nothing to celebrate about that.