John Whelan (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister for Arts, Heritage and Gaeltacht Affairs, Deputy Jimmy Deenihan, to the House. I am grateful that he is taking my question. I have a great grá for the canals system in this country. I was fortunate to grow up in Monasterevin, along the canal, and have fond recollections of fishing and swimming there and encountering champion pike, roach, perch and bream. I spent many school summer holidays watching the barges and leisure craft going through Coughlan's lock, Moore's lock and the famous aqueduct in Monasterevin across the River Barrow.

This is, therefore, of particular interest to me. I commend the Minister and his predecessors because the canal systems and inland waterways have in many respects come in from the cold, from an era when they were disused and derelict, and used as dumping grounds. To my horror in the 1960s whole tracts of the canal were filled in and lost forever.

We do not put the same store and stock in the canal and inland waterways resource here as people do in the UK and elsewhere in Europe. That is very unfortunate. Spurs of the canal to towns such as Mountmellick and Portarlington, which would now be a huge asset and resource for tourism and leisure activity have been lost forever. As the Minister knows, the canal system has been immortalised in ballad, verse and poetry. There are concerns that we are about to take some retrograde actions. If at all possible will the Minister extend the Waterways Ireland period of consultation for the proposed new canal by-laws? The consultation period is due to expire on 3 February. It was only a month, which is too short. There is too much at stake for us to rush into this and put into legislation any measures that would curb or prohibit the use of the canals or be a retrograde step.

Inland waterways associations such as those in Offaly, Tullamore and other towns such as Edenderry, Rathangan, Monasterevin, Vicarstown and Athy are grievously concerned about this and the Minister’s intervention would be most helpful. We want to be positive and constructive but it is vital that we do not bring in any new by-laws that would impede access or impose prohibitive costs on leisure craft users and boaters, or would in any way impinge upon the tourism asset and discourage tourists from using the fabulous canal network which comes from the capital in Dublin through the Royal Canal and Grand Canal to the midlands, where I come from.