AA Ireland has said that the tools available to Gardaí to tackle uninsured drivers are “worse than useless”.

An Oireachtas Committee is examining the rising costs of motor insurance after some premiums more than doubled in recent years.

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The AA’s Conor Faughnan has told the committee that gardaí need better resources, such as number plate recognition, to recognise uninsured drivers.

“At the moment, we’re still using a paper windscreen disc to decide whether a car is insured or not, and that actually facilitates fraud, it doesn’t prevent it,” he said.

“The only equipment we give our gardaí to check whether a car is insured or not is a torch to shine on the disc. And that is literally worse than useless.”