Mr. Kevin Thompson:

The contributor this morning from the London School of Economics provided a good overview - one with which Insurance Ireland concurs - of the different mechanisms or systems in place for providing flood cover. The system in Ireland is similar to that of the United Kingdom in that it is predominately a privately driven market. The position is slightly different on the Continent. In Spain, France and some of the Scandinavian countries, governments intervene in the market by providing natural catastrophe insurance. We do not have such intervention here. There are different models in place. I allude to a comment made by the contributor from the LSE who stated that while various countries have different models in place, there is no perfect solution.