Colm Burke (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State of the House and thank him for attending a meeting in Cork last Thursday night with the business community, the local public representatives and Oireachtas Members. It was an extremely constructive meeting. Moreover, the proposal made at that meeting about the setting up of a forum involving the Office of Public Works, Cork City Council officials and the business community is important.

That is a point I continue to make.

What is missing from local authorities currently are ratepayers. We do not have enough ratepayers on local authorities. I was a member of Cork City Council for 12 years and I was one of two ratepayers out of 31 at any one time sitting on local authorities. In Cork City Council, €65 million is collected from ratepayers in Cork city, which is a huge amount of money. I welcome, therefore, the consultative process the Minister has set up to ensure that those who are directly affected by the flooding are kept in the loop in terms of what is happening.

Businesses have been very badly affected in the city, and the situation is devastating. One person who attended the meeting on Thursday night spent 22 years building up a business only to find suddenly that they have to go back to the drawing board to try to get it operating again. It is frightening that people have to face into that.

I called to a number of premises in Cork city on Saturday including the Evening Echooffice in Oliver Plunkett Street, which is a new office. While they had put flood barriers outside the front door, they still found water coming in through the walls from neighbouring premises. Regardless of the flood protection people put in place, unfortunately it does not always work because of the current structure. That is something that must be taken into account when planning for the future.

Local authorities will have to examine this issue in regard to some form of rates rebate for premises and businesses, and businesses have come through tough times in the past four to five years, adversely affected. If we consider the situation in Blackpool two years ago, there has been too much of a delay in dealing with that issue. I found also that when businesses looked for a rebate on rates, there was no give by the local authority. That was unfair and we must be conscious of that because as other speakers have highlighted, these people are employers and they are making sure their employees are looked after in good times and in bad times. It is important that we do likewise in regard to ratepayers and local authorities taking that into account. Some concession should be given.

As a ratepayer I am paying rates to Cork City Council on my own business, and substantial rates are being paid by businesses in Cork to the local authority. I was talking to people recently who have one of the smallest ground floor units in North Main Street. They are paying between €9,000 and €10,000 a year in rates. I would imagine any business with a 1,000 sq. ft. ground floor premises on Oliver Plunkett Street or on Patrick Street is paying anything up to €10,000 to €15,000 per annum, which is a substantial amount of money. They are paying, regardless of whether they are making profit. It is important that issue is taken into account.

There is another issue we need to examine. Following on the contribution by Senator Darragh O'Brien, and I have tabled a Private Members' motion this evening on this issue, which I raised previously, namely, a central fund between the insurance companies. We have the Motor Insurance Bureau dealing with car accident cases where the car driver is not insured.

It is interesting to look at the system in place in the United Kingdom. The net cost in the UK, and we are talking about a far bigger number of insured premises, is ST£10.68 per premises that is insured. I am not saying we should start exposing businesses or householders to more expensive premiums but we must look at it with a view to putting in place some kind of a structure, perhaps even a central fund, with Government coming on board also to support that central fund in some way. It has to be considered for premises damaged by flooding whose owners cannot get flood cover insurance. It must be examined in some way.

Senator Barrett referred to the flooding of the River Shannon. My own home place was affected when the Inniscarra dam was built. My family lost land in that flooding but what was interesting about the people involved in the building of that dam was that they also built new roads. The amazing aspect about the new road that was built is that it was built by French contractors and we have not seen one pothole on that road since the day it was built.

We need to examine the question of getting international advice on flooding to see how other countries have dealt with it, particularly the Netherlands. We should not be afraid to say we do not have all the answers. We do not have all the answers, and we should not be afraid to look for international advice on this issue. It is interesting we did that when we were building the hydroelectric stations. We did it in regard to building of roads attached to that, and they did a superb job. This is not a criticism of any contractor that has built roads since, but I am talking about coming up with fresh ideas on how we deal with issues, and we should do that in this context as well. We should not be afraid to ask for that advice.