Arthur Spring (Kerry North-West Limerick, Labour)
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312. To ask the Minister for Finance if an insurance company licensed here is permitted to include a flood exclusion endorsement in a client's household insurance despite the area in which the client lives not being designated as a flood risk area but in which flooding occurred in the storms of early 2014. [34613/14]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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I am very much aware of the difficulties that the absence of flood insurance cover can cause to householders and businesses. However, neither I, as Minister for Finance, nor the Central Bank of Ireland, have the power to direct insurance companies to provide flood cover to specific individuals.

The provision of new flood cover or the renewal of existing flood cover is a commercial matter for insurance companies, which is based on a proper assessment of the risks they are accepting and the need to make adequate provisioning to meet these risks.  As a matter of course, insurance companies carry out reviews of the risks they are prepared to insure against and sometimes make decisions to discontinue certain types of cover which they consider high risk. Insurance Ireland has indicated that 98% of policyholders have household insurance which includes flood cover.

I am advised that in cases where individuals are experiencing difficulty in obtaining flood insurance and believe that they are being treated unfairly it is open to them to contact the Insurance Ireland which operates a free Insurance Information Service for those who have queries, complaints or difficulties in relation to insurance. Their service can be contacted at (01) 676 1914 or by email at .

The Office of Public Works (OPW) and Insurance Ireland have agreed on a sustainable system of information sharing in relation to completed flood alleviation schemes. The outcome of this arrangement is that the insurance industry will have a much greater level of information and understanding of the extent of the protection provided by completed OPW flood defence works and will therefore be able to reflect this in assessing the provision of flood insurance to householders in areas where works have been completed.

Following the severe weather events at the end 2013/early 2014, and on foot of Government decision to provide up to €19.6m for storm damages to public coastal protection and flood defence infrastructure, the OPW has allocated funding of €18.3m to local authorities for programmes of works to repair damaged public coastal protection and flood defence infrastructure.  The overall response to the severe weather events was co-ordinated by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, and the funding for repair of coastal defences is part of a total of up to €70 million which the Government has allocated for repair and remediation works arising from the storms.