Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a well-rooted Bill. I listened to the response of the Ministers of State. It is good that it will be re-examined in nine months. At this time of year, the end of my back garden transforms from a nice green area to a field with swans and a few ducks. I fully understand the problem. I live only a mile from Clonlara. Deputies McNamara, Wynne and Carey all know how bad things are down there when the Parteen weir spills over and floods the area for six or seven weeks every year. This is still called a 100-year phenomenon but it is an annual event. This agency must be established.

We need to examine the EU habitats directives and all the EU's environmental laws over the years.

We seem to implement them a little differently from how it is done in other countries. The logs and butts of trees that wash down from the midlands end up in the river around Plassey and Clonlara, where there are now protected habitats. They gather up silt and become, in effect, little islands. This is material that gets washed down in a flood and it needs to be taken out because it clogs up the channel of the river. A farmer near me often said, about one of the smaller tributaries locally, that for every metre one dredges down, that becomes a metre one takes off the bottom of the river. It has to be banked 1 m high, which creates a 2 m deficit. It is the only answer. A full dredging of our rivers has not been done since the foundation of the State 100 years ago.

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