Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for interrupting but I have to leave and I need someone else to take over the Chair.

This group has presented some very important information to the committee to enable the committee and the House to make its judgment at a later stage. In relation to insurance, I have always had the view that everybody must be involved, that is, the banks, insurers, engineers, the construction industry, everybody. This will come down the tracks again in some other shape or form and some other generation will have to deal with it unless it is dealt with now. The points that have been raised by members of the committee are indicative of that. Remember that public confidence in the system has to be retained. The constituents of the Members of the House are the ones who suffer and are suffering all the time and they have to rely on their elected members in a political situation to enable a proper judgment to be made.

I will leave our guests with a point relating to fire, storm, flood and theft. I had a famous case once upon a time when, during the course of construction - and there was construction insurance separate from everything else in respect of households as well - a lightning strike took a roof right from a house, right from the chimney stack above the attic, right down and through the foundation. The insurance company said it did not fall within the criteria until we told them that it was a storm. It happened to be an electric storm but technically it was an storm. I will leave with that.