Mr. Tony Smyth:

We responded to the committee's report on the River Shannon shortly after it was circulated to us through the Minister. The main points we raised were that much of the work to be done would require the outputs from the CFRAM modelling and understanding of the river flows on the Shannon before some of those issues could be addressed. There is a protocol in place between the ESB and Waterways Ireland for the operation. I understand from all stakeholders such as the IFA and so on that this is not acceptable to them but that is there at the moment and, pending the outputs from CFRAM when we will have a proper model of the river and a proper understanding of the water levels and how the water levels in the lake and the callows are interconnected and so on, we will not be in a position to make any recommendations for changes on those levels. We reported on that and we responded to the committee's report. We appeared before the committee late last year on that and another issue.

We also have frequent meetings with Waterways Ireland and the ESB. The board has agreed to aim to reduce the starting water levels in Lough Ree by 100 mm. at the start of the summer and to have that as its target but that will be dependent on hydraulic conditions, rainfall, what happens on the river and so on. We are not always in control of that because there is a limited level of control. There are only a number of gates in Athlone that can be opened and, therefore, at a certain point the inputs into Lough Ree overwhelm the output and one is not control of the level but we understand the difficulties and our response in a sense is through the CFRAM for that, as it is for other rivers around the country to develop proper warning-----