Kevin Humphreys (Dublin South East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I am very disappointed with the working group. It has been meeting since January 2013 but we still do not have a solution. I find the Minister of State's answer unsatisfactory. The 2% figure to which he referred was inaccurate when it was first estimated and it has become even more inaccurate since then.

We are talking about 100,000 families.

This Government has to come up with solutions. In the United States, they have the national flood insurance program for areas such as Florida and Texas. In the United Kingdom, there is the statement of principles and memorandum of understanding involving a possible insurance levy of £10 per policy. A model was presented to the Joint Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht by the National Flood Forum. There are solutions out there. We need to pick them and move on.

I have been at this since 2002. It has gone on far too long. The Minister of State may not have created the problem but it has landed on his desk. We need a solution. I thought there was some hope when the Minister of State stated on "Prime Time" last night that the State may have to be the insurer of last resort. These families want to have insurance. They want to pay for insurance. They cannot access it. The upshot of it is that the taxpayer still has to pick up the bill. If homes are damaged or undermined by flooding, we will have to put an emergency fund in place.

There are good precedents elsewhere as to how this could be dealt with. There are good ideas coming from the National Flood Forum. We have gone past the time for talk and moved on to the time for action.

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