Paul Connaughton Snr (Galway East, Fine Gael)

I am sure the Minister will inform me he has no responsibility in dealing with the recent flooding. The tragedy is the other 14 Ministers also say the same. I commend this motion because I have never seen such flooding as that which occurred recently. I accept there will always be cases of unprecedented heavy rainfall and flood flashpoints but do people have to suffer as much as they did recently? I do not believe so.

The sooner a single authority to manage the Shannon river is introduced, the better for all concerned. I attended the IFA meeting on the recent flooding, a meeting I have attended 20 times over the years. Each of the participants - the OPW, Waterways Ireland, the ESB, the fisheries boards - gave a mission statement of their importance and what they do. That is not good enough. There must be an integrated single authority to manage the Shannon.

I am not silly enough to believe there will never be flooding. However, the Shannon must be managed in such a way that at the height of the flooding season it would be 1 ft. lower than it is now. Engineers inform me this is entirely possible and practical. Ships can easily navigate the river and fisheries will not be affected. Lowering the river level by 1 ft. would make a great difference to the tens of thousands of families living on the banks of the Shannon and its tributaries. Now that the recent flooding affected inland towns such as Ballinasloe, there will be a mood among the public for an amazing change in this regard. I cannot see how the Government will do this, given its track record. However, even at this late stage it must tackle the issue.

I believe the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government thought up his recent announcement on water conservation overnight. I know of a large water group scheme that lobbied the Department for an extra €1 million for nothing more than to ensure meters were installed. It had to sign a particular contract recently that would mean that two thirds of 580 houses in the scheme would be metered and the remaining third would not. The scheme was told there would be no funds available for it to install the extra meters. On the same day, the Minister announced €300 million was being made available for water conservation. Why was this not communicated to the scheme? Where was the forward planning? I will test the Government's and the Minister's sincerity on this and we will soon find out what conservation means to them. Will the €1 million now be made available to the Caltra-Castleblakeney-Ballymacward water scheme?

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