Colm Burke (Cork North Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for her comprehensive reply. We are in a situation where flood relief programmes have been put in place and property owners are still having difficulty in getting flood insurance cover. The Minister of State might ask why they need it but they need it because if one is drawing down a loan or mortgage from a bank, the bank will look for that insurance. The same is true with householders and this is one of the difficulties that lending institutions will start raising. There is no guarantee. In this case the Government has responded comprehensively and fast. If there is one-off flooding where only half a dozen properties are affected then we might not get the same reaction. That is the difficulty I have with not having some kind of long-term plan in place that automatically kicks in.

It is a difficult area and I fully accept what the Minister of State is saying to me, that the insurance companies may start playing a different game if we introduce that kind of scheme. I fully understand that. We should look at it from a long-term point of view, especially where property owners have been affected by flooding previously and where all the necessary steps have been taken by them and the local authority but they still have difficulty in trying to get new insurance and then, if they are selling on property, they have huge difficulty in marketing it. If one takes my constituency office in Blackpool, for example. Less than 20 yds from my office the commercial buildings were all flooded. No one wants to invest there now, even if we get the flood relief scheme, and unfortunately the flood relief scheme in Blackpool was subject to a judicial review and we are back to consultation now again. No one will invest in those commercial properties until such time as these issues are resolved.

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