Denis Naughten (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputy Fitzmaurice for raising this issue. I am surprised that he has done so because he stated on local radio last week that he would raise the issue of rural broadband with me. He did not do that last week or this week in the House. Last week, while I was being attacked locally, I was trying to put mechanisms in place to support our local beef farmers in the context of the ongoing climate change negotiations.

I was also surprised because this issue was raised in the Roscommon Heraldon 8 November when Mr. James Fogarty wrote an article. I contacted him afterwards, as did my officials, to explain the situation. We also explained it to the flood action group in Castleplunkett. My officials have been in contact with the group a number of times since.

Roscommon County Council submitted two applications for a derogation on works, one for south Roscommon and the other for mid-Roscommon. My departmental officials and Inland Fisheries Ireland, IFI, were out on the ground and spoke to the council engineers in October. We have been expecting an application to be submitted to IFI since then, but it has not been received. In fact, IFI stated in the 8 November article that it had not halted works in the area and would contribute to the method statement regarding the environmental mitigation measures that needed to be put in place.

Deputy Fitzmaurice was present for the visit of the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, to the community in Castleplunkett when I made it crystal clear that my Department and I as Minister would facilitate in every way possible any work that could be undertaken. I took the bull by the horns as Minister. Instead of considering what was happening in terms of our turloughs, I directed my officials to start carrying out works without waiting for Government sanction. A body of work and potential solutions are now in place to solve some of the turlough problems.

I have instructed my officials in the inland fisheries division and IFI to bend over backwards in facilitating local authorities where possible. Last month, they offered to assist Roscommon County Council with the requisite application.

IFI is an agency of my Department tasked under section 7(1) of the Inland Fisheries Act 2010 with responsibility for the conservation, protection and development of the inland fisheries resource and recreational sea angling. My Department and IFI work positively with Departments, State agencies, local authorities, groups and individuals on the broad issue of surface water maintenance and channel conveyance throughout Ireland. IFI is precluded under fisheries legislation from approving in-stream works, those being, works in water, during certain sensitive periods annually, which primarily relate to fish spawning activity. To minimise adverse impacts on the fisheries resource, works in rivers, streams, water courses, lakes, reservoirs and ponds should, except in exceptional circumstances that I will outline, be carried out during the period 1 July to 30 September.

On 2 September and with a view to flooding issues in recent years, IFI acted proactively and sent a circular to each local authority's chief executive advising that the window of opportunity for undertaking any necessary in-stream work was drawing to a close. IFI reminded the local authorities that all programmed works in-stream needed to be completed by 30 September.

It is important to state that the advice was in the context of IFI's legislative responsibilities and that local authorities were also advised that there may be other agencies under which sanction or approval for this type of work was required, for example, the Office of Public Works and the National Parks and Wildlife Service.

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