Mr. Gerry Ryan:

As the committee will know, that project now falls under the remit of Irish Water. Among the options that are being considered for the project to supply water to the Dublin and eastern region is the possibility of interim storage of water taken from the Shannon at a site in the midlands. Our site at Garryhinch is a cutaway peatland, which is just outside Portarlington and has been identified as a suitable site if such a reservoir was required.

We have fully co-operated with the company that is now known as Irish Water but, previously, it was the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government and Dublin City Council, which led the project and examined and assessed the suitability of the Garryhinch site. For example, the ground conditions at the site and various matters were surveyed.

The site is one of the options that is being considered by Irish Water. In fact, it has just started a public consultation process on the options to deliver the project. Until such time as the public consultation process is finished we will not be actively involved in anything to do with the site. We are happy to say that the site remains available and we are quite happy to deal with anybody who wishes to use the site.