Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick County, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will take the last part first. Galway is included as part of our catchment flood risk assessment and management, CFRAM, study. I could get into a bigger discussion with the Deputy later about coastal erosion. Through the OPW, I am committed to holding a webinar with all Oireachtas Members regarding where it stands on coastal and river protection for flooding. I want to hear from Oireachtas Members in terms of policy, suggestions and amendments to the law.

Regarding insurance, last week I met officials from the Department of Finance and Insurance Ireland. It is not an issue that is the responsibility of the OPW but is it is one I feel aggrieved about, to be quite honest. We are spending a serious amount of money on permanent and demountable flood defences. In some areas we have no choice but to build demountable defences because we cannot build walls across bridges or a permanent fixture across a road where a flood is likely to occur. We have to install demountable defences to protect properties where we know there will be a serious flood. For the past number of years this has gone around the world like Methuselah's cat and nothing has been done about it, to be quite honest.

The meeting I had with officials from the Department of Finance and Insurance Ireland last week was part of an action plan I have developed over recent months with my officials in the OPW. As I have said, we are not the lead Department on this but we chair the interdepartmental working group on flooding. We got this as a hospital pass. I have made sure it is something the Department of Finance and Insurance Ireland have to take responsibility for.

Insurance companies will refer to variables. The variable they want to dodge in this instance is demountable defences, and they say they are not the responsibility of insurance companies. There are variables in an automobile. When motor cars, as they were called, were first put on roads there were a lot of variables. Cars are all mechanically propelled and are completely and utterly dependent on variables, yet they are all insurable.

Insurance Ireland and the Department of Finance will have to come to a satisfactory conclusion at some stage as to whether demountable defences, which are engineered and signed off on by the OPW and handed over to local authorities, are insurable. They have been proven to work, to hold back floods and to deal with one-in-100-year events or whatever. They have been shown to work in the recent past. They and the properties concerned are insurable.

This issue has been given to us. The Chair of this committee would do me and the people who cannot get insurance a great favour if the committee dealt with this issue. I have no problem coming before the committee again, as Minister of State with responsibility for the OPW, to deal with this as a separate issue. It is something that needs to be addressed once and for all. As I have said, it has been given to the OPW as a virtual hospital pass. We would love to see it addressed. It is not fair to people who cannot get insurance.