Every householder in the country can expect a hefty rise in their insurance premiums next year as a result of the flooding crisis.

As the midwest braced itself for a further onslaught in the next 48 hours, with the already record water levels on the lower Shannon set to rise by up to another metre because of high tides, the final cost of the floods still cannot be calculated. Even last week's extravagant claim of €300m of damage is now considered conservative.

The "weather event" -- effectively three weeks of persistent and record-breaking rainfall that fell on land already near saturation point after a wet summer -- has left tens of thousands of acres underwater south-west of the line between Sligo and Waterford.

Hundreds of people are still temporarily homeless and unlikely to return home before Christmas, large sections of the national road network are still impassable, hundreds of business are in crisis and many will not open again. Even those not actually flooded are not trading because access roads are flooded in the hinterland and people are simply afraid to travel.

"We expect that many small businesses will not open again. This was the final nail in the coffin. This Christmas was already last-chance saloon and I think many won't have the heart to come out of this," said Mark Fielding of the Irish Small and Medium Enterprises Association (ISME).

But everyone who owns property and takes out insurance will pay for the lack of investment in flood defences, cavalier planning which built tens of thousands of properties on flood plains, and increased rainfall linked to global warming.

Mike Horan of the Irish Insurance Federation told the Sunday Independent that "premiums for everyone are dictated by the cost of claims".

He explained: "Companies allow for a certain amount of bad weather when they are setting their premiums, but these floods have exceeded all expectations.

"We had a freeze and a storm last January which cost €56m, we had the floods last August which cost €96m. Those large claims and this latest flood will flow into pricing, and premiums may go up.

"There is competition, but insurance companies need to be financially strong enough to pay claims."

Many of the businesses hit last week were without insurance -- not because they were refused cover, but because insurers set premiums at a very high level due to previous claims or because the businesses were in areas which are prone to flooding.

"Normally insurance companies will look at the claims history and any flood prevention measures implemented by the local authority or the OPW in the area," said Mr Horan.

"There are a few actions they can take. Insurers can charge a higher premium because the risk is higher, or they can apply a high flood excess on the policy -- the first amount that the policy owner is liable for when they make a claim.

"Historically it is rare that insurance companies withdraw from offering cover in places which flood repeatedly," he said.

Insurance was about covering an individual against the risk of something happening. "not about covering someone against an inevitable event", he explained. "If insurers covered inevitable events, then the cost of insurance for everyone would skyrocket. One area where flooding is inevitable year after year is Clonmel. Flood insurance has simply not been viable in Clonmel for that reason," he said.

Mr Horan said if flood defences were not built where they were needed, or the Government continued to allow development on flood plains or flood hazard areas, insurance will become unaffordable or unavailable for a large number of properties in the country.

"The OPW is the lead agency of flood risk management in Ireland, but it is starved of resources.They were allocated only €43m for flood defences in 2009, but the cost of the Kilkenny flood defence scheme alone was €48m when it was completed a couple of years ago.

"Meanwhile, planning mistakes have been made. As well as the historic flood-prone areas, there are now new areas where new houses have been built on flood plains and there are no structural flood defences in place to keep them safe," he said.

The Government has already pledged €10m in emergency humanitarian funding but that will probably rise. This is to assist with the immediate problems of clothing, bedding and accommodation, and will be means-tested. Commercial and business losses will not qualify.

It is nearly two years since John Gormley wrote to councils warning against granting permission for development along flood plains, and last week he said it was clear that planning and development was a factor -- and that a harsh lesson was now learned.

"I think it makes sense to most people that building in flood plains is not a good thing. And I think over the years we have ignored good planning advice, we have zoned in areas that should not have been zoned," he said.

It's nearly five years since then-environment minister Dick Roche rejected entire tracts of the Laois County Development Plan due to excessive rezoning -- especially in flood plain areas.

One recent example of Laois County Council's attitude was its decision to grant planning permission to the Tesco supermarket chain to build on a six-acre site on a well known flood plain along the River Barrow in Portarlington. That was on foot of an OPW flood management plan launched and supported by Minister of State Tom Parlon. This proposed €12m in remedial and flood management measures to be co-funded by the OPW and Laois and Offaly Councils. This proposal never materialised. The Tesco plan was subsequently rejected by An Bord Pleanala.

It is now clear that in the vast majority of cases where homes were flooded and businesses damaged in the last week, they were situated on flood plains whether it was the Rivers Lee, Shannon, Suck, Barrow or other rivers.

No-one has lost their life because of the flooding so far, but if ESB engineers had not taken the decision to flood large areas of Cork city last week, a disaster could have occurred. The countdown to potential catastrophe began early on the morning of Monday, November 16 when the rain began to fall over Cork.

It was heavy and persistent, but hardly unprecedented. The level of water behind the Inniscarra dam began to rise, steadily. The ESB took routine remedial action. It began to let more water through the dam. In normal operating circumstances, the ESB lets through between 70 and 80 tonnes a second (70 to 80 cubic metres) -- which is the optimum flow to maximise electricity production.

Responding to the rising water levels last Monday evening, the ESB went up to 150 tonnes of water a second of spillage. That was within normal operating parameters and would not generally be enough to cause any flooding downstream in the city. Nevertheless, it issued a precautionary flood warning. There was some minor flooding in some parts of the city and outside Cork.

Everything was under control. The ESB received a weather forecast that promised very heavy rain later in the week. In anticipation it continued to let 150 tonnes of water a second to spill out of the dam throughout Tuesday, Wednesday and into Thursday morning in order to try and reduce water levels at the dam. What the ESB was trying to do was simply create space for the heavy rainfall that was expected on Thursday evening.

It issued a second flood warning at 11am on Thursday to Cork County Council and to the media. Usually, such flood warnings are taken with a pinch of salt both by the media and Corkonians.

But by 11am on Thursday morning there was heavy rain falling, and by the afternoon it was clear the amounts of rain were well in excess of expectations. The forecast said 40mm of rain in 12 hours. It was worse than that -- it appears that 90mm of rain fell in 14 hours.

The ESB decided to issue a second flood alert at 4pm on Thursday because water levels at the dam were now rising at an unprecedented rate --27cm (over 10in) an hour .

Engineers were now allowing water to spill out of the dam at increasingly greater volumes, first at 200 tonnes a second, then 250 tonnes, then 300 tonnes a second. As it was increasing the spillage, it knew it was going to cause flood problems in the city and the ESB also issued a special statement to RTE and local media.

According to the City Council, the Emergency Action Plan for Cork was activated at 2pm on Thursday afternoon. By Thursday evening, the rain was still falling extremely heavily. It meant that 800 tonnes a second of rain water was flowing into the two lakes above the dam in Cork. At the same time, just 250 to 300 tonnes a second was being spilled from the dam and flowing downstream.

The dam was now coming under severe structural pressure. Water was still rising, and again the ESB had to make a decision to increase the outflow as it looked at a potential catastrophe.

Between 11pm that night and 4am in the morning, water levels were at one point just 4cm from the top of the dam, a situation almost unprecedented since the dam was built in 1956.

The water being spilled from the dam downstream into Cork rose to 535 tonnes a

second, and it was this unprecedented release which caused most of the damage.

The torrent that flowed into Cork swept all aside.

The pumping station responsible for supplying drinking water to nearly half of Cork's residents was overwhelmed.

A stout wall that forms the boundary of the Mercy Hospital was pushed out of the way. The Glucksman Gallery, built on the Lee flood plain, was overwhelmed. Valuable paintings in the basement were damaged because it was too unsafe for staff to cope with what the gallery director, Fiona Carney, called "a tsunami situation".

After the flood overwhelmed the Glucksman, Dr Ciaran Hickey, lecturer in Physical Geography at NUIG said the gallery was built on a flood plain.

"It's not a former flood plain -- that is complete misinformation. It is a flood plain, and even in my own time as a student at UCC, I was in a building pretty close to where the Glucksman was subsequently built. You could see the area around the the Glucksman was regularly flooded in winter. The University knew this because all they had built down there were tennis courts and wooden pavilions. Buildings were only put in these areas in the last 20 years in the push for development."

Fine Gael TD Simon Coveney believes the ESB did the best they could in the circumstances.

"Whether they should have released more water in the last few weeks is open to question but I think given the emergency circumstances last week, they acted in the way they should have," he said.

But while the main problem in Cork city was lack of safe drinking water in the wake of the flood, the situation was worse in the west.

When the River Suck burst its banks near Ballinasloe, the floods wrecked dozens of homes. At least 150 houses and apartments, along with businesses, have been affected by the flooding in Ballinasloe since the river overflowed last week, with River Street and housing in the Derrymullen area being worst hit.

The Defence Forces have 140 staff and 30 vehicles deployed in Cork, Ennis, Limerick, Galway and Athlone, providing emergency assistance to people.

Claregalway was also badly hit, as was Portumna. In Kilkenny, Thomastown bore the brunt of the floods as well as Leighlinbridge in Carlow and Clonmel.

But as floods started to ease just slightly in some of these areas, it was clear that large volumes of water in the Shannon system were forcing their way to the sea, bringing flooding to other areas.

Hundreds of households in Limerick county and in east Clare remain on flood alert this weekend as water levels on the Shannon continue to increase. Parts of Castleconnell and Montpelier remain inaccessible, with a number of homes abandoned as a precaution amid growing fears that further heavy rain and water releases from the Parteen Weir will lead to increased flooding

Water levels along the lower River Shannon, at O'Briensbridge, Clonlara, Westbury and Shannon Banks, rose by approximately 2in between nightfall on Thursday and dawn on Friday as the OPW began constructing a major flood defence from Athlunkard Bridge (Corbally Road) to Hampstead Park (Shannon Banks) in Limerick.

This morning, people are bracing themselves for further heavy rainfall, the inexorable rise of the tide, and a massive flow of water down the Shannon that cannot be stopped.

Sunday Independent