Mr. Michael Horan:

The Deputy suggested that we do not differentiate between the numbers. All the numbers in the list - the eight incidents - are all flood events since 2000. We mention the two freezes in the following paragraph simply because they were such extraordinarily large weather events that a property insurer could not ignore them. As the Deputy has said, these are the major flood losses over that period. Localised flooding happens everywhere on an ongoing basis, but we are just isolating the extreme flood events - very large weather losses.

I believe the 98% figure is a reasonably accurate reflection of the situation on the ground. The Irish Insurance Federation operates an insurance information service, which deals with queries and complaints from members of the public. We do not deal with many complaints on availability of flood insurance cover, which would be in the low single figures each month. We always say that it is not possible to generalise from one or two examples. Overall we believe the flood insurance market operates efficiently. We welcome the engagement we are having with the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, and the OPW. Part of the purpose of that engagement is to allow the flow of information from the OPW on the work it is carrying out on flood defence works - big and small - to be communicated to the industry so that insurers can take those flood defence works into account when they are assessing risk.