Mr. John Hegarty:

For leisure use we see that Lough Mahon may well be better protected in the future so Lough Mahon and all of the area behind the barrier would be better for leisure use. We see the connection between the city, the docklands and the historic city in terms of our connection with the river as being improved and that people would use the river much more. We have spoken to boating clubs and there are many hundreds of people using the river on a Saturday morning and the number is growing. We also see a future for people living on house boats in the centre of the city. We have spoken to those groups and we are supported by the boat clubs and by anybody who uses the river for leisure activities.

In terms of the possibility of sea level rise, we feel and HR Wallingford also say that the tidal barrier can be built to protect us for a very long time so it is a much more future-proofed solution for the city. We feel the walls cannot rise. Although the highest proposed wall in the city centre is 1.2 m, as the OPW has said, there are ground levels raised up in different areas as well, so the top of the walls can be 2 m higher than current ground levels and people's front door can end up being 2 m below the current walls. There are subtleties about the OPW's scheme that everybody would need to understand and that is what we are trying to help people to understand.

The loss to heritage in the city centre would be extensive. There are rubble stone walls by St. Finbarr's, which are the precursors to the cut stone walls that are further down. There are walls with medieval and renaissance fabric and stonework that were built in the 16th and 17th centuries.