Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputy Moran. I am happy to cede to the great man, Moses himself, who held back the River Shannon this time last year. Thankfully, the weather gods are shining more favourably on him this year because I am not sure he could have held it back a second year in a row. I am happy to cede time to Moses Moran.

I wish to refer specifically to the issue of flood insurance and the memorandum of understanding signed in March 2014 between the chief executive officer of Insurance Ireland and the then Minister of State at the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform, Mr. Brian Hayes, MEP. I hail from Mallow in north Cork and, to be fair to the OPW, the programme of works commenced some years ago in the towns of Mallow and Fermoy have yielded benefits and success through the intervention of a number of Ministers of State. I do not seek to be overtly partisan on this because good work has been carried out down through the years, which has alleviated the flooding problems. However, it has not alleviated the issue faced by people who live on the flood plain and their ability to obtain flood insurance. The press release issued in 2014 regarding the memorandum of understanding states:

The Memorandum of Understanding outlines the principles of agreement between the OPW and Insurance Ireland on the information being provided and how it will be used by the insurance industry. The Office of Public Works will provide Insurance Ireland with data on all completed OPW flood defence schemes which will show the design, extent and nature of the protections offered by these works. Insurance Ireland members will then take into account all information provided by the OPW when assessing exposure to flood risk within these areas from 1 June 2014.

We are into December 2016 and somewhere along the line an election happened and since the election, that memorandum of understanding seems to carry no weight at all. I see my constituency colleague Deputy O'Keeffe is here and he will bear witness to the fact that there are people within the curtilage of the Munster Blackwater in towns and hamlets along that river who are being refused flood insurance, whether business or domestic. In spite of the fact that there were world-class engineering works signed off, the insurance companies are point-blank refusing to provide the risk cover for businesses and residents along that river. The memorandum of understanding seems to have fallen by the wayside and does not have the weight that was given to it prior to this election or as far back as 2014. I know the Minister of State is committed to this issue and I hope he will revisit that memorandum of understanding and re-engage with Insurance Ireland with a view to ensuring we find solutions. Deputy Rabbitte said it is a question of finding solutions to these problems in an apolitical non-partisan way.

In that press release the chief executive of Insurance Ireland said: "Insurance Ireland is pleased to announce the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the Office of Public Works (OPW) which will see the OPW sharing flood defence data with Insurance Ireland so that insurance companies can take this data into account when assessing flood risk." The sector clearly has not taken the two significant projects in Fermoy and Mallow into account when assessing flood risks. The big international insurance companies in places such as Geneva, Bonn or Berlin that speak through Insurance Ireland have decided they do not want to do it. They have made a simple corporate decision. It is for us in this House working together to ensure that memorandum of understanding gets the status it deserves and that we try to work with Insurance Ireland. In the context of the Bill that will come before the finance committee, we should bring Insurance Ireland back into the Oireachtas to find some resolution of this issue.

The press release also states "This MOU is the start of a process which will help our members [this is Insurance Ireland] make flood insurance more widely available in areas benefitting from flood defences built to the desired standard of 1:100 years." It has thrown that out the window and reneged on its own public utterances about providing cover. It is an absolute disgrace and it needs to be taken to task collectively by this House for dereliction of duty. There are genuine brokers and insurance houses which will provide cover in bespoke circumstances but it is unfair of anybody in the industry to expect a few players to cover the entire risk. That is why we have more work to do. I believe the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, will do everything he can on this but this Bill is a prism through which we can work together to provide a resolution.

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