Ms Catherine Kirwan:

On how people did not know about it, I was very concerned that the public consultation days were held during holiday time. They were held on 17 July 2013, 29 July 2014, just before the August weekend, and over the Christmas period. Further, even if a few people saw the advertisements in the paper, it was described as the Lower Lee drainage scheme. I did not know what that meant and nobody really knew what it meant. Apparently there were advertisements on the radio as well but everyone in the group has yet to meet a person who heard them. We strongly feel that this was going to sort of roll in under the radar. No one knew about it. When we started publicising it, people were quite shocked at the extent of the scheme. The OPW has spoken about how it respects heritage and the other department of the OPW strongly respects heritage and is the guardian of our heritage. However, this concerns the OPW drainage department.

Replacing authentic heritage with replicas is not the same thing as preserving heritage. Would we replace the Ardagh chalice with a modern replica? I do not think we would. What we have in Cork is authentic and real. Mr. Hegarty knows a lot more about it than I do. I am just a lay person who loves walking around the city. I do not know the ins and outs of where these things are from but I know that they were all locally made and constructed and are utterly irreplaceable. Replacing them with concrete is just not acceptable when there is an alternative. One of the problems all along has been that all of the business people and residents of the city have been told, even here today, that there is no alternative and that this is the only option. If people are told there is no alternative - to take it or leave it - that will influence people to support the scheme. However, there is an alternative, which is an economic one, and that is what we have come up with.

For example, in 2014, Cork Chamber of Commerce was saying exactly what we are saying. It was saying that concrete flood barriers could damage the city's river potential and that it could potentially damage the ability of the city to realise its obvious riverside potential and negatively impact on the attractiveness of the city as a location for inward investment and tourism. Eventually, it was told there was no other option. It was a case of take the walls or get nothing. Back in 2014, we could have written that document. That is what the chamber of commerce was telling the OPW. It was very worried about the impact.

Those who visit places such as Bruges, Amsterdam, Venice will not be interested in replicas of what was there but the real thing.

That is what we are trying to preserve.