Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for being present to reply on this matter. Over recent months the Minister and his officials have kept the Dáil and the relevant Oireachtas committee well informed regarding the work the Department is doing to tackle the issue of what will happen to communities whose homes have been flooded regularly, most recently in October and November last year. The updates have centred on two areas. The first is the physical work that has been done by both the Department and the local authorities on preventative measures to ensure either that the areas will not flood or the risk of them being flooded is massively reduced. The other area is one on which the Minister has been working, the discussions taking place between the Department and the insurance industry.

I will outline the situation in which many of my constituents find themselves.

They are resident in areas that have been flooded but where the council has carried out flood repairs. The insurance companies, however, still will not insure them. Many of them now find themselves being hit by a triple whammy. The first is that they have been flooded regularly in the past, and the fear of it happening again in future remains. Often it is more than a fear; it is a possibility. The second is that many of them now, because of the point when they bought their houses and what has since happened, have seen the values of their homes being massively affected. The third problem is that they cannot get house insurance. They love their homes and are proud of their communities but the values of their properties have fallen dramatically. They cannot get house insurance and if any of them wanted to sell, which most do not, they would not be able to do so.

Dublin City Council is working on many of the flood prevention measures so what options are open to people in areas where work has been done or is planned but insurers refuse to provide insurance? In such a situation we should be able to perform some sort of role to ensure these people are given the protection they deserve. It is not their fault they are being flooded. It is a result of action that was taken elsewhere.

Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for raising this very important matter. I am well aware of the impact that flooding has on businesses and householders. Having visited affected areas this summer, I am aware of the hardship and loss suffered as a result of flooding.

Most people are reliant on their insurance policies to protect them against the worst of the financial cost and loss arising. In this regard, I remain aware of the difficulties some people have been experiencing in securing insurance cover for flood risk at affordable prices or at all. Insurance companies make their own assessment of risk in any particular case. However, in areas where flood defence and alleviation works have been carried out, I cannot accept that any property protected by significant public capital investment would not be able to receive a quotation for insurance at reasonable cost. I have been engaged on this issue for some time now and I have made it clear recently that I am somewhat frustrated with the rate at which progress is being made in coming to an agreement with the Irish Insurance Federation, IIF, and the industry.

I first met with the industry in March 2012 and I had a very constructive engagement with it about the scope and scale of the work undertaken by the OPW on flood risk management, on the alleviation schemes being undertaken in many of our large cities and towns and, in particular, on the mapping of areas subject to flood risk nationally which will emerge from the OPW's catchment flood risk assessment and management programme. I indicated then that I wished to see an agreement reached as quickly as possible between the OPW and the IIF on a sustainable system of information sharing particularly for locations vulnerable to flooding and for identifying flood alleviation schemes and works completed and where the standard of protection afforded by these works could be verified.

While this may seem to be a straightforward matter, there are complex technical issues involved concerning the design standards and risk levels of defence works and the impact of those works in reducing the risk of flooding. Officials in the OPW have been working on developing a system for presenting information on flood defence schemes to the insurance industry to meet the technical requirements set out by the industry for risk assessment purposes. On 5 July 2012, the OPW made a presentation to the IIF and a number of the main insurance companies on a proposed template for providing the required information. The essential focus and objective of OPW's work has been in putting flood defence information on a GIS platform. This means the information will be accessible and viewable in a mapping environment and via the Internet.

The demonstration of the system at the meeting on 5 July showed examples of flood protected areas of Clonmel and Ennis. The areas identified are protected by flood relief schemes carried out by the OPW or local authorities. These areas are generally protected against a flood that has a probability of occurring of 1% in any one year. The maps will be presented on a web viewer with a link to details of the scheme design, including a design report, environmental impact study, if one was carried out, and scheme drawings.

Following the presentation on 5 July, the OPW wrote to the IIF on 19 July providing it with detailed information in template form on the schemes mentioned and requesting that it disseminate this information to its member companies with a view to getting feedback and comment on the proposed template. I understand the IIF has indicated in recent days that it is in the process of collating the responses it has received from its members on the OPW information and it hopes to be in a position shortly to formally respond on this.

I look forward to receiving the IIF response and I very much hope that it will be positive and allow for speedy agreement on the format of the information to be provided by the OPW. There may be some technical details to be ironed out but I would hope that these can be resolved quickly. With the agreement of the IIF, the OPW will then be in a position to progress with its work on compiling the information on other flood defence schemes that have been completed. This will take some time as there is a lot of detail to be sorted through. The focus initially will be on compiling information on the main schemes that have been carried out since 1995 when the current programme of major flood works began.

I acknowledge the insurance industry's engagement on this important matter. There is no question but that the industry has suffered substantial losses from major flood events in recent years. In its presentation to the joint committee, the IIF indicated that the cumulative cost of the eight major flood events since the year 2000 has been €697 million. Against that, however, must be balanced the very significant investment made by the State in major urban flood defence schemes since 1995 and the huge benefit deriving from that investment in terms of properties protected and losses avoided. It is estimated that almost 8,000 properties have been protected to date and the value of the benefit deriving from that is of the order of €800 million. The State, therefore, is certainly doing its part to mitigate the impact of flooding and I can assure the Deputy and the House that the Government and I will continue to do so in so far as resources allow.

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Minister of State for the comprehensive response. Many of the communities I represent such as Cabra, East Wall, North Wall, Clonliffe Road and Ballybough, despite the works that have taken place or that are promised, cannot get insurance for their homes. Any day there is rain like there was on Sunday, the first people I think of are those who live in homes that are not protected from flood risks who then face the nightmare of not having any support if they are flooded. The Minister of State made a key point: it is not just that they cannot get insurance, it is that they cannot get it at any price. I urge the Minister of State to do everything in his power to bring those discussions to a close so residents in areas at risk will see a framework being put in place.

Brian Hayes (Dublin South West, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy for his constructive comments in this debate. For an agreement to be reached, two parties much come together. The State wants that agreement because it is in the interests of the State to establish a written protocol with the insurance industry on the standard of work we have put in place, which is to a minimum of a 100 year event, meaning the works on flood defences will withstand even such an event. We will stand over the work we do; it requires other third parties in the private sector to accept what we are saying. The Deputy will appreciate the frustration I feel in this matter.

The first task is to agree a template of information that at least we are all agreeing with the information being provided, in other words, what we have done since 1995 in terms of major flood alleviation works in urban centres is guaranteed to withstand a 100 year event should such an event occur. Once we have an agreement in that regard and once they accept that I would hope, at the minimum, the insurance companies would provide cover to those areas where major urban capital infrastructure investment has gone in for those flood mitigating projects. I cannot demand with a gun that they do that; I cannot demand that they form an agreement with that because these are private sector companies which argue to me that they have seen substantial losses as a result of the flooding events in recent years but we will continue to work at it.

I use the opportunity provided by this debate to tell the insurance companies that I am frustrated at the lack of progress and that if we have not come to an agreement with them concerning the template of information, we can at least share at a platform level between the federation and ourselves. I want to bring these matters to a conclusion as soon as possible and if people are not prepared to agree, they should say so but to continue at a distance while people cannot get cover is an appalling situation. I fully appreciate and sympathise with the situation the Deputy and his constituents face as it is replicated in many parts of the country. It is one thing not to have insurance cover when one is waiting for works to be done, but it is another to say that there should be no insurance cover where substantial investment has been made by the State. I continue to work with the Irish Insurance Federation and the companies affected to bring them to the table and negotiate a fair settlement on this matter.