Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

This Bill aims to come up with a solution that will work for communities along the length and breadth of the River Shannon. I live in County Leitrim, and if we were there tonight, it would be possible to see that Lough Allen is full to the brim with water because it has rained for the past couple of weeks. A dam there can be raised and lowered, and that regularly happens. There is always pressure on the Office of Public Works, OPW, to do that, and the OPW and other bodies are engaged in doing that. The reality is that if that dam had been lowered six to eight weeks ago when navigation stopped on the Shannon - there are no boats on the river at this time of the year - and the lake was now practically empty, Carrick-on-Shannon would not be facing a threat of flooding. That is the problem.

Every time we see a situation such as this coming into the winter months, the River Shannon must be lowered to the lowest possible level. Up and down the length of the Shannon each year, however, community groups, including the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, and other farm organisations, contact the ESB and the OPW to request them to lower the level of the river before the water comes, so that it can then take more water from the flood. The flooding does not last forever. Most times there are two to three weeks of rain, and then it subsides again. If the level of water is not low to start with in the River Shannon, however, there will be a problem because it will not be able to take the extra flood water. I am just referring to the management of the river now.

There is a separate aspect to this matter concerning the prevention of flooding. Some of that involves putting up walls and barriers in towns to prevent urban areas from being flooded, but much of what needs to happen involves drainage measures. I refer to removing pinch points and doing appropriate works at different places along the length of the Shannon and ensuring they are done in co-ordinated fashion.

There is a problem, and the Minister of State knows this, as does everybody involved, including the other Deputies here who live in the area and understand it and talk to the people on the ground. If one talks to elderly people who have lived all of their lives in that region they will tell one that they know what is going to happen. They know that when the river is at a certain height and there is a certain amount of rainfall, they are in trouble. Every one of them will say to do the right thing because a pinch in time saves nine, but that continually fails to happen and has continued to fail to happen time after time through the years. It still is the case.

I was contacted last week by a woman in Leitrim village whose house was practically flooded last February when they had to put sandbags around it. They are very fearful at the moment that the same thing is going to happen. It is the same everywhere we go along the length of the Shannon. A big problem is that the agencies do not work together. They tell us that they do and they tell us that they meet, but all of them come to it with their own separate individual agendas. We need the power to be taken away from them and put into one agency which has overall power over the river, and which can actually make sure everything is done to relieve the entire situation along the full length of the river. That needs to happen as a matter of urgency.

I welcome that the Minister of State's confirmation that he supports the merit of the Bill from that point of view, and his proposal that the Bill will be read a Second Time in nine months. That is somewhat positive but the problem is that people in houses that will be flooded in the coming weeks will see this as the Government pushing this further out from them again. I do not think that is a wise thing to do. The Minister of State, Deputy O'Donovan, should embrace every opportunity to do everything possible to put every agency to work to resolve the situation. They are not doing that and they have never done that because they all work to their own separate individual agendas. That has been the problem here.

The issue we must bring to bear is around the power that currently rests with the ESB in particular. I pick the ESB out because the ESB is the main problem here. The ESB continually blocks and does everything to act as an obstacle to getting a result for the people who live in these regions. The power needs to be taken from the ESB so that it can no longer decide who it floods and who it does not, which is what it actually does. That is the power it has got. This power has to be taken away from the ESB and it needs to happen now, not in nine months, two years or three years. That power needs to be taken away and put into an agency that will have responsibility and will be accountable to this House and to the Minister to make sure the work is done properly. It has not been done and there has been no accountability. That is the problem we have had down the years and we have all been whistling in the dark. As my colleague Deputy Clarke has said, when the pumps are on and the sandbags come out, everyone runs around in wellingtons looking at it. That does not solve the problem. It is today and over the summer months, in the dry spells and the dry times of year that we need to come up with solutions.

I implore the Minister of State to try to look at this again, not to push it out for nine months as he has proposed in his amendment, and to actually embrace this right now to do something that will be proactive to resolve the situation.

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