Ms Sinéad O'Brien:

The water framework directive is quite novel in that it has a specific requirement to encourage the active involvement of stakeholders and local communities. Through the work of LAWPRO, the local authorities' water programme, local catchment groups and rivers trusts have been established and have done good work in raising awareness, but the next step is to get those groups actively involved in making decisions regarding the management of their waters. Some areas have very active groups, such as Cork Environmental Forum, which is very active in regard to water. There is a question as to who will develop these 46 catchment plans, and I hope we will get to have a discussion about the confusing governance as well.

When those catchment plans are being developed, local communities have to be actively involved in their development. To do that, there needs to be at least one community water officer for each of those areas and they need to work closely with the communities, garnering their views and knitting them in to the development of the plan. Parallel to that, those local groups have to be well resourced. We have seen in the river basin management plan that the Government and the Department see an intrinsic role for them, but there is very little resourcing. Most of these community groups are voluntary, with perhaps one or two of them employing someone part time, yet they are expected to carry out river surveys and citizen surveys, river clean-ups and so on. We recommend, therefore, that all those catchment groups and rivers trusts should be funded with at least one staff member who can co-ordinate their input into the development of those plans.