Rose Conway-Walsh Demands Business Support After Storm Owen

Minister, it is almost four weeks since Storm Owen battered the country and I wrote to you early in February to ask that a scheme be put in place urgently to assist businesses affected by the storm. Last week Sinn Féin took a PMB calling for government supports to businesses. My question today to you is why has no scheme been put in place today because businesses need to know today what help they can expect from this Government in the aftermath of the worst storm in history. Thank you. Thank you. I would like to wish Deputy Conway Walsh the very best of luck in her role as spokesperson. I look forward to working with you in a very good relationship with your predecessor Deputy O'Reilly and myself and Minister Smith and Minister Dhillon look forward to the years ahead delivering the programme for government. I am acutely aware of the significant challenges that the impact of Storm Owen has caused for businesses their owners over the recent weeks. Since the 24th of January I have been closely monitoring the situation in relation to Storm Owen as impact on the business community through regular updates from the National Emergency Coordination Group and updates from our local enterprise offices in the counties that have most significant and prolonged impact. Following the immediate damage caused by the storm many businesses have been impacted by outages in relation to power, water and communications networks. With regard to the issue of potential schemes to support businesses with loss arising from Storm Owen, I would first point out that in the instance to encourage businesses to seek recourse through their insurance providers for losses which they have incurred. I have been engaging directly with the Insurance Federation and my clear understanding is that most losses incurred by businesses such as property damage, loss of earnings and spoilage of stock fall within standard insurance cover and the damage caused by the storm is standard insurance pearl for insurance policies. I welcome the fact that Insurance Ireland have said that House premia, for example, are not generally impacted by one such event as the storm but rather on a range of many different rating factors in relation to Insurance Pearl. The Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment has in the past operated a targeted emergency humanitarian flood relief scheme in response to flooding incidents. These schemes are specifically targeted at providing a contribution to small businesses of up to 20 employees as well as community, voluntary and sporting bodies who have experienced damage as a result of flooding and to help them get back up and running. A condition of eligibility for these schemes is that businesses must not have had insurance cover or through fault of their own. The Programme for Government includes a commitment to an extreme weather event assistance scheme which we are currently working on to establish. Go ahead. Go ahead. Minister, maybe just to clarify around the insurance companies. Did you get agreement from them then that the amount that they pay wouldn't be impacted because I suppose what businesses are afraid of as well? There are two issues around insurance and the first one is around the excess. So if their excess is a couple of thousand euro or whatever and then if their loss is less than that they obviously won't be able to claim but the other thing they are afraid of is that then their premium goes up so they end up over a three or five year period paying back more than they actually got in the first instance. Also Minister, when you say you are in contact with the companies be it water, electricity or communications, there are still hundreds of businesses and homes in Mayo and in other counties that don't have proper communications and there are no proper responses from air, from Vodafone, from the other communication companies. So maybe you could clarify the extent of the conversations that you have had with them and when they will be reconnected because it is really, really impacting on their businesses. Thank you and I thank the Deputy for her response. First of all I would also put on the record that the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine has announced the scheme for investment in the horticulture sector which had been very significantly impacted. In relation to your direct question on insurance companies, absolutely I was very quick to contact the Insurance Federation to get assurances that businesses affected would be covered in relation to their standard practice. While I can't go into individual policies in relation to accesses because they are very different, I can assure people that in the general course of action and Insurance Pearl that it is part of standard and insurance cover. I would also say that in relation to communications, I have been on to Minister Patrick O'Donovan and we are very concerned in relation to getting businesses back up and running and first responders which did have an outage in that period of time and we have a lot of work to continue to do in that regard. Also Irish Water is procuring this week, commencing to get 100 generators again future proofing for events because one thing we have to learn in this country is how we respond in future for a very significant event like this because we have to accept there were gaps in the response but also there was exceptional response to the investment that went into rural Ireland. We saw so many schemes and so many communities who really rose up to that challenge. So Minister, I suppose I really want to get clarity on, will there be a scheme put in place for businesses and I hear what you are saying around horticulture and I welcome that but you will know the land in Mayo and the west of Ireland in general does not lend itself to that. So I want to get, I mean are we going to have a scheme that was similar to what was done for Storm Babbitt? I really think it is important that that is done sooner rather than later because people want certainty and businesses want certainty as well and there are so many people who are self-employed and rightly as you say you know farmers and fishermen. I have one instance I think I spoke to either you or the Taoiseach last week around it, around oyster farming where there is about 160,000 that has been lost and they don't have insurance. Now they are not going to be able to operate again unless they are compensated from that. So I really think that there needs to be clarity around it. I hear what was said in the Programme for Government but their vagueness around it is causing real concern for businesses. Businesses cannot sustain the losses that they have done during this storm. Thank you Minister. First of all in line with the commitment in the Programme for Government we are establishing a scheme but particularly for this event we have to be clear that the first recourse is through their insurance, the premium that they pay to cover them for loss of damage, loss of earnings, spoilage of stock, that is the critical way in which they seek recourse. It is very different to flood damage where businesses could not get insurance, that is a very different scenario but we are establishing a scheme and also a point out putting the record of the House in relation to the statutory deadlines that businesses face through the CRO and the Revenue Commissioner we have worked to ensure that there is significant leeway for businesses as they fail to meet their regulatory requirements in this particular point in time. But as I said the most key impacted areas like the Department of Agriculture has stepped up with a scheme in horticulture, there is a lot of agriculture damage that was carried out that we will be assisting on but in relation to businesses we have to work to establish a statutory scheme in future which work is underway on. But being quite honest at this point in time the first recourse is through their insurance companies. If there is any specific cases through the Leo's local enterprise office we are very happy to work with businesses and support them in any way we can.