Mr. Enda O'Donovan:

It is just Skibbereen. They do geo-profiling and are picking areas. I can give an example concerning a gentleman I know in Fermoy. He lives high up on the hill over Fermoy. The OPW has completed its works on the north side of Fermoy. It has signed off on it and it is done, but insurance providers will not even contemplate giving flood cover. The insurance industry is not accepting the work the OPW has done. In the past year, people have phoned me from Dublin. They lived through the horrific events of October 2011, with catastrophic rainfall in a very short period. The probability of that type of rainfall returning is 1 in 350 or 1 in 400 years, but the insurance industry has withdrawn cover in that area. That means that a person cannot sell such a house. Anybody who wants to buy it cannot get a mortgage. The Society of Chartered Surveyors may say that the house is saleable, but it is not. It has hugely diminished in value because the only person who can buy it is someone who does not need a mortgage.

That is how serious this issue is nationwide. We derive something of a feel good factor from the Revenue Commissioners actually understanding this point and acknowledging that those who do not have flood insurance cover should mark that down on their property tax self-assessments because this is a huge issue. Moreover, one will find that 50,000 people will note this point on their self-assessment forms and while the insurance industry will state only 2% are not covered by insurance, that equates to 50,000 units.