Independent TD Mattie McGrath, has launched a blistering attack on the intransigence of insurance companies who have been heavily criticised for failing to respond appropriately to community needs following the recent flood damage.

Deputy McGrath was speaking after it emerged that the Government is considering imposing a 1% levy on all forms of insurance as a response to the unwillingness of the insurance sector to provide meaningful solutions around the provision of flood insurance.

“There is a stand-off going on here between the Government and the insurance industry in this country and it looks as if the Government is going to blink first. It is simply not acceptable for all forms of insurance, from house to car insurance, to suffer another additional rise because of this sector’s greed and inability to compromise.

Deputy McGrath said he met with people over the course of the holiday weekend who told him repeatedly that they cannot endure the continuation of a situation where levy upon levy is being forced upon them, and that was before this news emerged.

“If it is the case as Minister Hogan has said publicly that the insurance industry is not altering flood-risk assessments in areas where millions of euro have recently been spent on effective flood defences, like those in Clonmel, Fermoy and Mallow, then this clearly constitutes a manipulation of the market.”

The Tipperary South TD said in no other area of insurance would this be acceptable. “It would be akin to me being deliberately charged the same insurance rate for a 20 year old car as for a state of the art modern car.”

While he welcomes the fact that Minister Phil Hogan has been highly critical of the industry, McGrath says must at the same time question why, in the 16 months of negotiations by Government, no further progress has been possible?

“Yes, the lion’s portion of the blame must be with the insurance industry but this kind of time frame also points to an inability of the Government to forcefully spell out severe consequences for the industry in terms of harsher regulation etc.,” he said.

Many will agree with Deputy McGrath when he says: “It is no good having representative groups like Insurance Ireland saying that it expects to pay out €46m for storm flood damage as if this was some kind of virtuous act on their part. People have paid and paid dearly for the right to access that level of compensation through punitive insurance rates.”

He called on the Minister to make publicly available, the negotiating positions of all the major insurance companies ‘and let the people see for themselves the kind of stubborn greed that has brought us to this position’.

“Only then can the people truly assess for themselves how much of the ‘public line’ that these companies are putting out in to the public domain is actually spin and false promises,” concluded Deputy McGrath.