Michael McCarthy (Cork South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State's fairly detailed response, outlining the issues, some of which are within the control of the Department and others which are not. For a household, it is very important to have access to the humanitarian assistance scheme through the community welfare offices, but there is a major role in these difficult times for insurance companies. By and large, they are being let off the hook, and that is not good enough. The committee on the environment and local government carried out discussions on this issue about a year ago. The report is almost ready for publication, but there is a particular role here for insurance companies to do the decent thing.

In so far as it is practicable, we can deal with those who are not insured through the €5 million scheme announced by Government this morning. That is very welcome. There is also an issue regarding the resources local authorities have in areas where the schemes are not up and running to do what they can, as Deputy Ó Cuív pointed out, in so far as is practicable, to ensure culverts, drains and so on are kept clear. There is a particular onus on local authorities at the moment to look at those affected businesses which have no insurance cover and which were struggling as it was and to give them a remission of rates, given the extraordinarily difficult circumstances that have been heaped on them.

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