Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too compliment Deputy Michael McGrath on bringing forward this reasonable Bill. A lot of work and dedicated effort went into it to try to do something for thousands of families up and down the country who are worried. The Minister of State, Deputy Seán Canney, is new in the job and to having scripts written for him. Two Ministers of State read scripts that did not mention a human being, a man, a woman or a child - not even a dog was mentioned. They talked only about what they were going to do using acronyms which Deputy Catherine Connolly said were bland and empty. They were bland, but they were not empty because every place is full of water and they are sitting idly by like women at a wake with no snuff. It is a joke.

I welcome all of the people in the Visitors Gallery. They are ordinary people who are working to try to save properties and families and all we get is this balderdash. I come from Clonmel where excellent work was done by the OPW, except for a few small spots that flooded last year at the end of the scheme in Kilganey, at the Old Bridge and west of the town, but in the main a good job was done. We have demountable defences which have worked and will work, but the Ministers of State are reading the gospel according to all of the moguls and cartels in the insurance business. While that continues, they will rub their fists with glee, while the Ministers of State will rub butter to their fat pigs’ you-know-what. It is crazy. The Government is an insult to the people. New politics must have gone out with the flood, but we have had no floods yet this year, since the Government took office, thank God because the Ministers of State would not be able to find them. Members of the Labour Party did not turn up tonight. The former Tánaiste must have got such a fright last year when she fell out of the canoe. I never saw a canoe on dry land. There was someone pulling it, but the poor fellow could not pull it fast enough and it got stuck in the ground.

Rejecting the Bill is a mockery. It is an effort to put manners on the insurance companies because they do not have them or show respect. They are daylight robbers without engaging in violence, as we have seen in Clonmel and Kilsheelan. They talk about 2009 OPW maps which the Minister of State, Deputy Seán Canney, mentioned, rightly, but they are quoted every day of the week in telling people they cannot be insured. When we look for them, we cannot receive them, but they are quoted and used. It is a disgrace that the Bill is not being accepted. This Fine Gael-led Government, supported by Independents, is as cosy as it ever was with big business and big people.

The Ministers of State must not have read their scripts. I am surprised at Deputy Seán Canney who was a good a friend to people in County Tipperary and helped and listened to them. The Ministers of State did not mention a person or a family; they only used acronyms and referred to a memorandum of understanding between the OPW and the industry. I would love to know what kind of memorandum it is because there is definitely no understanding, not one bit. We would need to get a dictionary. They also used the phrase "fair and reasonable". There is nothing fair or reasonable about houses being flooded and people spending their own money to provide a safe place for themselves, a dry dock, for which they cannot get insurance. It is a cartel, a racket. If it walks like a duck and looks like a duck, it is a duck; it is an insurance cartel that will not provide insurance cover or listen. Why would it when it has all of these memorandums of understanding? The Minister of State is chairman of a committee, but as Deputy Catherine Connolly said, it has not met for four years. That is the contempt they show, as long as Dublin is safe. The River Tolka flooded once and there was uproar and pandemonium, but to hell with the rest of the country, to hell or to Connacht.

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