Irish Examiner view: Who will pay the piper for stormy weather?

Disaster insurance

It is estimated that losses from weather events are doubling globally every 12 years because of various socio-economic factors — population growth, increases in building in vulnerable areas such as flood plains and coasts, additional wealth, and inflation-driven costs of replacing vulnerable infrastructure. Picture: Andy Gibson

In Ireland, when major disasters strike, it is the Government and taxpayers who are usually the insurers of last resort. Happily, we have not experienced the kinds of climate catastrophe which are an increasingly regular feature of life elsewhere. 

Perhaps the biggest bill to be picked up is attributable not to global warming, or poor flood defences, but to the use of defective building materials in the €3.5bn mica crisis.