Councils urged to back FSB insurance costs campaign

The Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) has today revealed it is to intensify its campaign to tackle high insurance premiums for small businesses.

FSB says it would be urging all 26 local councils to pass a motion supporting urgent action by the Government.

Wilfred Mitchell, FSB Policy Chairman for Northern Ireland said: “There is no doubt since we launched our survey on high insurance some months ago the situation has grown steadily worse, with even more small businesses contacting our office expressing concern that they cannot get insurance cover at all.

“In our research of our membership, it showed that up to 1,000 jobs are at risk – we now would put that figure at considerably higher. When we add this to the recent job losses at Gallaher’s and Desmond’s, this is very bad news for the local economy."

Mr Mitchell said FSB was now in the process of contacting local Councillors from all parties, across all 26 local councils, to urge them to pass a motion in support of the campaign and to demand urgent action from the Government.

"If we gain the support of all 26 councils, this will be a considerable boost for our campaign.

“We will also in the next few weeks being taking our case to Westminster to brief MPs and peers from the Labour, Tories and Lib Dem’s on just how bad the situation is in Northern Ireland," he concluded.

(MB)