Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

I wrote to the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, on 20 July 2011 regarding this issue, which pertains to the unprecedented flooding in the autumn of 2009. After that flooding, many residual issues remained. In the first instance, as the Minister of State is aware, the then Government put in place humanitarian aid, which was made available expeditiously. However, during my term as Minister for Social Protection, two main issues remained to be resolved. The first was the relocation and the second was ensuring that those who would not be relocated would be provided with insurance for their houses. In December 2010, two memoranda were brought to Government. One put aside €4 million for relocation for up to 20 houses and it was clearly understood that if that number rose to 23, 24 or 27 houses, it would not be an issue. I understand that in recent weeks, offers of relocation have been made. I am very disappointed at the amount of time it has taken the current Government to implement that decision but I understand that some progress has been made in this regard at last.

The other decision made in government dealt with the insurance issue. The decision was that the Office of Public Works, OPW, would continue to progress spending on flood relief works for the worst affected areas in a structured way to reflect priorities, taking appropriate account of catchment flood risk assessment and management studies, as this approach represents the most cost-effective solution to the difficulties some people were having in getting insurance cover, in conjunction, where appropriate, with the then Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government. It went on to decide further that the Minister of State with responsibility for the Office of Public Works, an office now held by Deputy Brian Hayes, would take the lead role in the continuing discussions with the insurance industry about the provision of insurance cover in areas in which remedial works were being carried out, supported appropriately by the then Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Department of Finance and would report back to the Government on progress. Moreover, the Office of Public Works, which I reiterate is the responsibility of the Minister of State, was to put in place a regular and structured communication process with the Irish insurance industry to try to ensure a regular flow of information to insurance companies assessing the risk of flooding to homes and businesses.

Despite the fact that the Office of Public Works has stated to the people in various places, I will mention in particular Caherlea-Lisheenavalla and Carnmore in my constituency, that it will and has carried out works that will have a major impact on the possibility of flooding, those people still cannot get flood insurance for their houses. This situation is absolutely ridiculous. The Minister of State was charged with liaising with the industry. The idea of the previous Administration was quite simple. It was that the Minister of State would put it to the industry that in the event of the works being carried out and of clear progress being made, the industry would continue to insure these houses, Such houses, which only flooded in extreme conditions in 2009 are no longer at high risk and even if there was a repetition of the kind of weather and flooding that took place in 2009, they would be highly unlikely to flood now because of the mitigating works.

I expect the Minister of State will tell the House - I have it in a reply to a parliamentary question of 16 June 2011 - that this is all a matter for the insurance industry. If the Minister of State believes that, he must believe in leprechauns and so on. He is aware that the insurance industry, in the case of these small number of houses affected, will listen to the Government because the industry is and has been liaising with the Government since Fianna Fáil was in power in respect of the areas of priority in which works needed to be carried out. As the Minister of State also is aware, in such a situation, it is easy to lay down that if the industry seeks the investment of millions of euro of State money by the Government in flood mitigation works, the Government in return would expect the industry to provide insurance to the small number of affected houses at which it has been decided that relocation was not needed because the risk would be so small. It appears strange that the Government could not, through all this liaison work, ensure these households were provided with the insurance.

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