Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for being in the Chamber for this important debate. In the winter of 2009, I had not been long re-elected to Clare County Council. As the Minister of State knows, the role of an elected member varies from day to day, but in the winter of 2009 I found myself falling into line with other residents, homeowners, farmers and business people in my community, sandbagging and piling up sandbags against homes in the community that were at risk of flooding. The River Shannon, as it has a propensity to do, burst its banks and the river waters, and all the creatures that live in the river, including ducks and fish, flowed down driveways and into fields where we had never seen flooding before. People told us that was a 100-year event and we probably would not see it again in our lifetimes. It happened again two years later, four years later and in 2019, which was the last time it occurred. Global warming has definitely made flooding a real issue.

However, if we go back to 2009 and the chaos and catastrophe that flooding is, only two houses in my locality flooded. Yet, at this very moment, in excess of 1,000 houses cannot get flood cover. There is something fundamentally wrong with that. People are being put to the pin of their collar in many walks of life at present but to also be denied flood cover devalues their properties and, in many instances, is causing the sale of houses to fall through. It might be asked why. The reason is when a house is up for sale, and the bank and solicitor have to scrutinise that property, they very quickly establish people in this locality cannot get flood cover and, therefore, they will not lend for this mortgage, an individual cannot buy and the sale falls through. This is happening repeatedly in places such as Westbury, Shannon Banks, Carraig Midhe, Cloonlara and Shannon town, which is the second largest town in County Clare. That is just in my own county. It is happening nationwide.

It all comes to the principle of risk equalisation, a principle that works so well in the realm of health for VHI Healthcare and other private health insurance providers. There is risk equalisation for the likes of VHI Healthcare so a smoker pays something similar to a non-smoker, a person who is overweight pays something similar to a person who is slim, and a person who is elderly pays something similar to a person who is young. It is risk equalisation to benefit all and to ensure that the widest possible catchment of people can have private health insurance. That works fine in the realm of health. That same principle of insurance does not work fine when it comes to houses.

If we think of Shannon Banks, where a tiny part of that community flooded in 2009, by any stretch of the imagination, if we look at the topography locally and the land levels, there is no way, even in the worst flood events, that the water would rise a further 30 ft and threaten homes in a neighbouring housing estate. Yet, the insurance industry has decided that is the case. It is a way of gouging out higher premiums for homeowners. It is causing major instability in the market when people try to sell and buy houses. It is a destabilising factor in itself before we ever get to the difficulties people encounter in trying to obtain mortgages and finding a house to buy. I ask that the principle of risk equalisation, good as it is in private health insurance, be dismantled and removed from the whole realm of property insurance. It has no relevance whatsoever to it and is very damaging.

Insurance for public events also needs to be looked at. So many are at risk of falling by the wayside. Tomorrow is 23 June. I am sure the Minister of State knows the song "Spancil Hill". I hope to get home for some of the Spancilhill Fair that will again take place tomorrow. It is a fabulous institution in County Clare. People from all over Ireland will come there. It is one of the oldest horse fairs in Europe. It is said that horses bought at Spancilhill were brought to fight in Napoleon's army. That is how far back that fair goes. However, it was not the Napoleonic wars that nearly ended that fair. It was lack of insurance and the insurance sector stating it could not insure the fair any more. It almost collapsed the fair after hundreds of year, a fair that survived famine, civil war and everything in between. It was the insurance sector that nearly toppled this fair. Clare County Council stepped in but the Minister of State, and the Government overall, have got to look at a mechanism for ensuring that these age-old cultural events continue to receive insurance cover in order that they can be run without too much ado.

The book of quantum is still something that should be of significant concern to everyone in this House. Some people are deserving of the compensation they get because some accidents are very real and life-changing and, as such, people deserve to be compensated. Some other people, however, if they idiotically decide to take a tumble in the toilets of their local chipper at 2 a.m. or 3 a.m., will take that restaurant owner through the wringer and will even sink the business to get compensation. That exploitation of insurance also needs to be looked at.

I will finally raise the issue of trespassing. Just last month, the Cabinet agreed a tightening up of insurance and will look at the whole realm of people filing insurance claims for being on a premises they never had authorisation to be on in the first place. Trespassing is still very real in Ireland and farmers feel it an awful lot. I recently saw a letter from someone not too far from me who wrote to a landowner to say this privately owned parcel of land, which has been in private ownership for generations, is for the enjoyment of all and not the gratification of one family. Good Jesus, this is private property, which is there for a farmer or landowner to use. If people want to hike in places and walk across land, they can do so with consent from a landowner but trespassing without someone's consent is legally wrong and should also be wrong from an insurance perspective. They are interfacing with cattle, livestock and electric fences. There could be bog holes, watercourses and whatnot. If someone is to take any risk to be on someone's land without authorisation, they need to be prepared to face the consequences, if any.

I also read the new proposals the Government is devising will make it more restrictive for burglars to file insurance claims, when they are injured in the course of carrying out their profession of burgling someone. We do not want "restrictive"; we want an outright ban. If people are illegally on one's premises with the intent of breaking and entering, robbing and stealing, and stripping an individual of wealth and assets, they should have no recourse if they fall through a Perspex roof, if they cut their leg climbing through a window or if they sustain any accident or injury while on that property. If people break the law and break into someone's property, by God, they have no right whatsoever to come to the courts system months later and scam the insurance system all over.

I have nearly finished.

Regarding the motor industry, we have considered penalty points and a raft of measures have been introduced in recent years to try to make road safety more of a priority. The cameras that some people have fitted to their cars are useful, as I saw when sitting in traffic one day. A guy walking across a pedestrian crossing tumbled onto a bonnet and claimed he had been injured. I would say he had so much drink consumed that he did not even know that he had left the high stool. Regardless, he believed he had been injured, and this type of situation is happening day in and day out. Cameras are a sure way of differentiating between the genuine case and the fraud. They are not expensive. I have one myself and it cost €100 or €120. Perhaps it should be a requirement that new vehicles be fitted with front- and rear-facing cameras before leaving the garage forecourt in order that a cache of evidence can be gathered that whittles out the fraudulent from the genuine.

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