Mr. Laurence Fallon:

I will let Mr. Kearney deal with the compensation issue. Regarding how many houses will or will not be affected, we have to understand this is a basin of water surrounded by hills. It is quite high up, about 32 ft above the level of the Shannon. It is not low ground, but high ground surrounded by hills. The only way this lake can ever rectify itself without a pipe being put in, if we continue to get the predicted rainfalls, is that it will eventually double in size and eventually flow into the Shannon itself, but by then it could have consumed up to ten houses and seven farmyards. There is no natural way out other than through the swallow holes, which do not have the capacity. The pipe is 70% ready. All we are asking is for a small quantity of water to be removed to reduce the level of the lake to the Ordnance Survey Ireland line of 66 mOD. After that, we are convinced that the turlough will rectify itself except on very rare occasions when the flood rises. The turlough has got out of kilter. It is like trying to fill the bath with the same amount of water every day, but it is half full when starting. It will simply overflow. There is no other way to describe it.

Our problem is that the legal system is so stacked against us that we cannot address this. Our county council went to the OPW, using the Local Authority (Works) Act 1949. It is on the Statute Book and has been amended to refer the habitats directive, Directive 92/42/EEC, yet when it went to the courts, it was found to be null and void. The same issue arose when it tried to use emergency powers. Families were using pumps to keep the water away from them. If the pumps stopped for two hours, there would be 3 ft of water in their houses. The judge, who I have no issue with because I am sure judges are always right, said this is not an emergency under EU law. We appear to have two laws, one from the EU and one from Ireland. The laws to protect the special areas of conservation, SAC, are stopping us from doing what is right for the SAC. Individual rights are gone. There seems to be no way around it at this stage. Everybody needs to come together to find a solution to this issue. This is not just about Lough Funshinagh. There will be another issue and another issue.

The bottom line is our legal system has become vague because of the transposition of EU legislation. When it is vague and unclear, the simplest thing for people in the legal profession to do is to say "no", because it is too risky to say anything else. We are suffering because of the lack of clarity in the Local Authority (Works) Act 1949 or the emergency powers legislation that came much later. That has failed us twice despite that we thought, in good faith, we were doing the right thing because we were using Irish legislation. Mr. Kearney might address farmer compensation.