Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State and wish to be associated with all the congratulations he has received since he came in here. Like Senator Davitt, I soldiered with him in the chamber of Westmeath County Council so he will forgive me if by lapse of memory I call him a councillor or Boxer, but I know he will answer to both. Since I came in, I also have found out that a happy birthday is in order, so we send him good wishes in that regard as well.

I am in a lucky position in that I will not have to bring up any local issues with the Minister of State because I know they are in his capable hands and as a fellow countyman I know this is one of the league tables that Westmeath will be top of when it comes to his efforts and his activities. I welcome that and wish him the very best of luck in his role nationally but I will keep the pressure on him for the local stuff in Westmeath.

The issue I want to raise with him is something I have raised here previously. It is somewhat under his remit but it would also fit in under the remit of his constituency colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy Troy, in the context of insurance. It is the roles that the flood risk assessment maps, FRAMs, have when it comes to insurance, specifically insurance of properties. I have a particular instance outside Kilbeggan where a man was granted planning permission ten years ago, built his house and ticked all the boxes with the planning authority but in the interim new FRAMs were drawn by the Minister of State's Department under CFRAM or whatever and he is now inside a line that was put on a map and his insurance company has raised his premium enormously. He went to get quotations from other companies to mitigate this and they refused to even quote him because he is inside these lines. The Minister of State said in his opening statement that these maps highlight one in 200 year potential events and there is a 1% chance of them happening, but this man and his family and his successors will be paying through the nose for this because they ended up inside a line on the map that is more than 500 m away from the River Brosna. I know the area very well; I am not too far from it. If this man's house is ever flooded, we will all need Noah's Ark around him and everywhere else. I know the people who draw the maps are looking at the one in 200 year events but there are consequences as to where these lines go and there is a serious element when the lines are going on the map of "to be sure, to be sure". As I said, there are consequences. The Minister of State might take this up with the insurance companies as to how they read the maps. Like insuring a car, I can go third party, fire and theft or comprehensive or I can include my windscreen or whatever. If flooding is the problem because people are in a certain location on a map when they are insuring their house, let there be a fraction of a premium increase to cover the flooding element on their insurance, but let it not also cost them that much extra for fire, lightning, theft and whatever else if they are in that situation. As I have said from the outset, this is not solely the Minister of State's problem. The Department is responsible for the maps, which are the problem. It might be something the Minister of State would take up with the other Department or with the insurance companies in order that in situations where it is a 100- or 200-year event, it will not cripple poor families paying their insurance premiums on an annual basis.