John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail)
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322. To ask the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform if he will confirm the Department, agency or authority that can deem a property to be in a location where there is a risk of flooding; how a decision of such a body can be challenged; if his Department has funded any flood relief measures either directly or through Kilkenny County Council for Paulstown, County Kilkenny, and its hinterland; if his Department has met recently with the insurance industry representatives to establish their approach to insuring properties that may be at risk of flooding and to update the data and maps used by the industry to identify specific areas of concern throughout the country; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2672/25]

Kevin Moran (Longford-Westmeath, Independent)
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The Department of Finance has overall responsibility for policy matters in relation to insurance, including flood insurance. I am advised that the Department of Finance has been engaging with the insurance industry on all aspects of insurance reform, including flood cover issues. These matters are a priority for the Government and efforts continue to be made to encourage a responsive approach to the provision of flood insurance from the insurance industry.

Government policy on flood insurance is centred on significant investment in sustainable flood risk management and the exchange of information between the insurance industry and the Office of Public Works (OPW) on completed flood relief schemes, as outlined under. Investment of €1.3 billion for the delivery of flood relief schemes is provided for over the lifetime of the National Development Plan to 2030. The work will protect approximately 23,000 properties across various communities from river and coastal flood risk. The OPW, through the Catchment Flood Risk Assessment and Management (CFRAM) Programme, carried out the largest-ever flood risk study in Ireland to date, which assessed 80% of properties at risk from Ireland’s main causes of flooding. The OPW Flood Maps, which show the flood risk for 300 communities, are a key output of the study together with 29 Flood Risk Management Plans, with the proposed flood relief measures to address the flood risk in each community.

The Flood Maps are available to the public at www.floodinfo.ie. However, it is important to note that they are community based maps. The maps were not designed to designate individual properties at risk. Therefore they do not show individual properties and they do not identify if a property close to an extent is, or is not, within an area at risk of flooding. The maps show the probable extent of flooding based on future projections.

The flood maps available for the Paulstown area were produced under the OPW’s National Indicative Fluvial Mapping (NIFM) project that commenced in 2019, with the maps published on the OPW website www.floodinfo.ie/map/floodmaps/ in 2020. The NIFM flood extents were primarily produced to carry out a national scale preliminary flood risk assessment.

The NIFM flood extents only provide an indication of areas that may be liable to flooding. They are not based on detailed analysis and are not necessarily locally accurate. In this regard, they are not suitable to assess the flood risk associated with individual properties or point locations, or to replace a detailed site-specific flood risk assessment.

The Disclaimer and Conditions for the use of OPW Flood Maps on www.floodinfo.ie includes a provision that users of the website must not use the Flood Maps or any other content of the website for commercial purposes. As such, the Disclaimer prevents insurance companies from using the flood maps generated by the OPW.

The insurance industry has its own flood modelling tools for assessing the level of risk that it is willing to underwrite in relation to individual properties. It has highlighted to the OPW that it does not use the OPW Flood Maps to inform its flood modelling. The decision on whether to offer insurance, the level of premiums charged and the policy terms applied are matters for individual insurers. Insurance companies make commercial decisions on the provision of insurance cover based on their assessment of the risks they would be accepting on a case-by-case basis. Neither the Minister for Finance nor the Central Bank of Ireland can direct the provision or pricing of insurance products, per the EU framework for insurance (Solvency II Directive).

Updates and revisions to the Flood Maps produced under the CFRAM Programme and as part of Flood Relief Schemes may occasionally be required due to a change in physical conditions, detection of errors or based on other specific evidence. In these circumstances a Flood Map Review may be undertaken.

A Flood Map Review is a two-stage process with the first stage representing a screening exercise. Where there is sufficient evidence provided that a published Flood Map does not reflect the current conditions, the OPW will proceed to a detailed re-assessment of the area in question.

For full details of the Flood Map Review Programme, see the Flood Map Review Programme - Guidance Note.

Insurance Ireland, the representative organisation for insurance in Ireland, operates an Insurance Information Service for those who have queries, complaints or difficulties in relation to obtaining insurance, which can be contacted at 01 676 1914 or feedback@insuranceireland.eu. Similarly, Brokers Ireland, the representative body for insurance brokers in Ireland, has access to a wide range of providers and products and can offer advice for customers when sourcing cover. Brokers Ireland can be reached at 01 661 3067. Furthermore, where an individual considers that they have been treated unfairly, they have the option of making a complaint to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman (FSPO). The FSPO can be contacted either by email at info@fspo.ie or by telephone at 01 567 7000.

The OPW has a role to assist insurance companies to take into account the protection provided by completed flood defence schemes. In this regard, the OPW has a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Insurance Ireland. A working group meets to discuss the sharing of data on completed flood relief schemes under the terms of the MoU. The membership of the Working Group includes representatives of the OPW, Insurance Ireland, industry members and the Departments of Finance and Housing, Local Government and Heritage. The MoU sets out principles of how the two organisations work together to ensure that appropriate and relevant information on these completed schemes is provided to insurers to facilitate, to the greatest extent possible, the availability to the public of insurance against the risk of flooding. While the MoU does not guarantee the availability of insurance, Insurance Ireland members have committed to take into account all information provided by the OPW when assessing exposure to flood risk within these protected areas.

There are no records of funding being provided by the OPW for flood relief measures in the Paulstown area.