Mr. Michael Barrett:

My name is Michael Barrett and I am the face of the petition today. The petition relates to the unfairness of unauthorised development on the River Shannon and its lakes and the potential damage it can do to the environment.

My presentation seeks to explain all the documents and photographs that I have submitted to the committee. What I want the committee to investigate is how some could people be allowed to develop over a period of years, some in recent times, without any planning permission on property owned and governed by Waterways Ireland in a special protection area, SPA, and a special area of conservation, SAC. It has done so without contributing anything to the owners of the property, who at the end of the day are the citizens of Ireland. Everybody owns part of that property because it is State property. Furthermore, how could these people have received grant aid while they were the subject of an enforcement order and investigation by Waterways Ireland? In its application form for the grant aid, it clearly states that it is for expansion of existing activities. Waterways Ireland, therefore, received State money to expand an unauthorized development and business.

I am delighted to be before this committee and fully confident I will get a fair hearing. I hope that any injustices that have occurred will be made good. I will hand members over to Mr. O'Sullivan in a moment. He is an environmental consultant and scientist with many years of experience dealing with issues like this. Before I hand him over to members I want to go through some photographs that will give them an idea of the areas and developments we are talking about. Do members see the photo in the background?