Mr. Kris Murphy:

It is important to note that a great deal of work has been done in the background by people like us, namely, public groups, but there is a much bigger story at the moment with the water framework directive being moved forward into the barriers project. I congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Noonan, and the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, on pushing these matters forward. We are now in a situation where managing projects is no longer completely reliant on public groups like ours.

We have been working very well with IFI, especially recently, and it is putting together a team that is going to manage these barriers. From a State point of view, I really think it needs the support to make sure it can make it happen. Its hands are tied through legislation and red tape. It is very important that once the money is allocated and this barriers project begins, processes have to be simplified and streamlined. They have to be sped up and handled with a collective approach. It has taken us seven years to put together all the reports necessary for a simple little grid on a tail race. I would be afraid that once this money comes in, precious time will be lost, money will be spent and projects will not be delivered because of red tape. It is great to see, and our application for the rock ramp is almost shovel-ready and we hope to be able to hand that over to the new team. They will take the bulk of the responsibility to push that forward but we will be there to liaise with the various State agencies as well in trying to pull it together. However, support and legislative and administrative changes need to happen in order to make this new funding successful.