Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I apologise for being late but I was putting a question to the Minister of State at the Department of Defence in the Dáil. I remember after Hurricane Charlie in the early 1980s that a number of friends of ours went to pan for gold in Avoca on the basis that it would have churned up older sediments. I must declare that we did not find anything but it was good fun. On that river there has also been an historic issue of pollution coming from the old mine sites. There was a certain amount of investment in recent years in remediation but could the Minister of State provide any update? Is the river still particularly polluted from the old mine tailings or have many of the issues been addressed?