Mr. John Hegarty:

Yes, down by Francis Quay, the South Gate Bridge and by St. Finbarr's. There are waterways that are untouched for a very long time. The bridges along Wandesford Quay are absolutely exquisite. I have seen a quay in Verona that is comparable to the bridge by Wandesford Quay. We have got incredible pieces of antiquity in Cork that people are just not aware of and that are not being looked after either nationally or locally. We know that the OPW could look after them. They are flood defences. We just do not want water levels that are so high that they would create such a change that we end up living under water. The scheme is designed to have faster flowing higher levels of water in the city, in particular in the North Channel, so the people on the north side of the city have to have this in their river.

We face the issue of rotting foundations, water tables and the possibility that we have to be protected given that we have 22 pump chambers with pumps that could fail at any moment. That has happened in other cities. People have been flooded just because the pumps have failed. We must look at what the maintenance burden is for the future as sea levels rise, and if they do how many more demountables will be in the city with no insurance for people. I have family living on the quays. The question is whether we will be looking out at a 2 m high wall, if the city will be unsafe because of that and if, eventually, the river will just turn into a drainage channel.

I ask committee members to cast their minds to Amsterdam, Bruges or any city that looks after its waterways and allows people to engage with them and see what the possibilities for Cork could be. We are here because we are afraid for the future viability of our city and the people living there, not just in terms of heritage but in terms of how people want to live and could live there.