Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As regards insurance cover and a solution, the reality is that there are two problems: the accessibility and then the cost, having regard to not only the increased risk of fire but also the scale of damage if there is a fire. I will give the Senator a sense of the issues. My officials met on 16 November representatives from the Treasury in the UK. They confirmed that availability is an issue still in the UK, notwithstanding the size of the market. In Denmark - the Deputy is right that I referred to 55,000 properties there - the cost of the insurance, while there may be availability, is four to five times higher than that of regular home insurance. There is also additional cost as regards electrical damage and so on, so there are other read-across issues. This is persistent. It is about accessibility and cost. We have the same issue here, so there is not a magical solution, I am afraid. The solution is about getting more players into the market and making sure the conditions are such that they can predict the risk in a more likely way and predict that there is less likely to be a fire in a thatched cottage if there are radiators than if there is an open fire or a stove, where the heat literally goes out through the thatch and embers potentially come out on top of that thatch. The Senator can see the risk himself. We want to maintain the buildings. We want availability. These are not all historic buildings; some are modern buildings with thatch roofs so they are slightly different in terms of wiring or, potentially, the heating source. In every case where we have had effect, it has been about people coming together to create a risk mitigation strategy. For example, in childcare or equestrian, where my officials have been able to get good effect and solve pinch-point problems, it has been because those sectors came together, agreed a risk mitigation strategy to reduce the risk and then collectively went either to a single broker or to access a bigger market so the risk could be spread. You reduce your risk so you are better in terms of price and you spread the risk, potentially with an insurer operating in a different market, so you have an impact on price as well. Those are the things that have worked to date. We think this can work as well but we have a little bit to go yet.