Senator John McGahon - speech from 16 Oct 2024

Thank you very much. Today, Leader, I would like to raise the issue of a report from the Central Bank about the flood protection gap when this appeared in the Irish Independent yesterday. Essentially what the flood protection gap is, and I quote, the problem affects some parts of the country more than others, with 54% of the protection gap concentrated in just five counties, Dublin, Cork, Kildare and my own county of Louth. Essentially what the flood protection gap is, it is where houses are built perhaps below sea level, are at risk of flooding, and insurance companies absolutely will not insure them. That is the absolute case in my hometown of Dundalk, and it is the case specifically where you have nearly tens of thousands of houses on the eastern part of Dundalk alongside the coastline. And that affects houses whether it is Bay State, Leninstown Manor, many down close to the Avenue Road, like it is, if you are, you know, I know you have been to Dundalk yourself, it is a huge part of the town. None of these houses are able to get flood protection. We have put a substantial amount of money in recent years to reinforce flood barriers along that way, but again that is something that is taking an extraordinary amount of time to actually get done. We see freak weather accidents are becoming more and more common. Every winter we see flooding is more and more common, and we saw that in North Louth last year. So how do we fix this? Because this has been, I am ten years in politics, this has been an issue for these ten years. Well, the central bank raised very valid concerns about it. And I think, and I know that Minister Neil Richmond, whose this is his area of responsibility, is doing a bit of work on this. But if insurance companies are not willing to insure people, which they should do, well then surely the government or the central bank needs to consider what ways it can step in and what way it can intervene. And God willing, whether I am in this house or the next house or wherever I am after the next election, whenever it comes, perhaps in the next few weeks, this is an issue that I am very concerned about and an issue that I want to continue working on. But it is an issue, Leader, that I would like to start the process now in the last week or two weeks or however long we have left in this, Shannon. It is simply not acceptable that insurance companies cannot insure tens of thousands of houses in a town like mine in the size of Dundalk. We need to do something to fix it so that people in those areas get the proper flood protection that they deserve. Thank you.