I have never travelled on the Luas but I’m told that it is a very convenient way of getting around Dublin. Living in the outskirts of the city, however, I have a bus route and train service virtually on my doorstep, not to mention the Hailo taxi app at my fingertips. So with insurance costs rising exorbitantly for all motorists, I could chose not to have a car and get by just fine.

Although now that I mention it, I am obviously not the only one around the city who prefers the car over public transport. Dublin is choked once again with traffic. Rush hour on the M50 is worse than at any time during the so-called boom years.

It’s dreadful frustration for motorists, although I am waiting for some Fine Gaeler to refer to it as proof they are “keeping the economy going”. A jammed M50 is a good sign everyone is working hard, right? You can imagine how much we are paying collectively in motor insurance every year.

Whatever about us in the big smoke having a choice of public transport options to avoid the M50 and the clogged-up city streets, what about motorists living in rural Ireland who have no choice but to drive due to the lack of suitable public transport?

They are being gouged by insurance companies and nobody is taking responsibility for the high rise in premiums. Everybody – from the Government to the insurance companies to the legal eagles – is pointing the finger elsewhere or at least looking the other way when it comes to explaining why car insurance has sky rocketed over the past year or two.

There is talk of employing the gardaí to investigate fraudulent claims, which are no doubt at the root of the increased premiums. But insurance fraud and staged road accidents are nothing new. Trying to pass off the hugely unfair increases in our motor tax on fraudsters is an insult to the hard-pressed Irish motorist, particularly those of us who have never had a claim yet are paying through the nose as if we are part of the problem.

There are plenty of politicians in the Dáil who got elected on the promise that they would oppose water charges. They threatened and continue to threat civil disobedience, that we are already paying for water, that we can afford no more. The hike in motor insurance being forced on us is multiples of any water charge. Remember, you can’t choose not to pay your car insurance. So where is the outrage? Or don’t the same crowd, some of them good at sitting down in front of cars, actually drive themselves? And where are all the protestors? Do they not notice the insurance hikes? CL

Feeling the pain over a lost loved one

Like every other Christmas, this will be the first for many families without a loved one who has been the victim of a road traffic accident. More than 160 people have lost their lives on Irish roads this year so you can imagine how sad Christmas is for those families.

However, I have to say that I also feel for some of those people who may have caused a fatal accident. Don’t get me wrong: it is difficult to find any sympathy for drivers who have caused accidents while drunk or driving knowingly recklessly. I am not talking about them.

But there are others who may, in a moment of carelessness, have caused an accident and who must live for ever with the scar on their conscience that they killed another person with their car.

It is something that must be extremely difficult to live with.