There is a very specific proposal which the chamber made to the ESB. Given that the ESB as responsibility for it, I am not sure whether the Minister of State and the OPW are able to direct the company or whether they are in negotiations with it. One of the ways the Minister of State could help alleviate flooding in future - I understand, from a meeting held with it earlier today, that the ESB is not against the proposal - would be to provide what is called "sheet piling" along the route from the sluice gate at Ballintra in Drumshanbo, which has been in place since the beginning of the hydroelectric scheme of 1926. The gate was provided to regulate the flow of water out of Lough Allen, which was originally to be used as a reservoir for the generation of electricity at Ardnacrusha. As a result of the development in tourism over the last 20 years, local lobbying resulted in the reopening of the Lough Allen canal which, as the Minister of State will know, links up with the Shannon-Erne waterway at Leitrim village. What was done opened up the entire north Shannon area for boating. I understand that some 150 boats go through the locks into Lough Allen between April and October each year. From October onward, there is very little boat traffic on the canal. It would go a long way towards alleviating any future flooding problems if Lough Allen were closed to navigation between October and April and if the levels were allowed to rise. In fact, the levels would probably be lowered as a result. Specifically, if sheet piling were placed between the lock at Ballintra and the Galley Bridge, a stretch of water that runs for a mile to a mile and a half after the Shannon leaves Lough Allen, it would go a long way towards alleviating the flooding further down in Leitrim village and Carrick-on-Shannon.

At present, the ESB is saying it wants to maintain the levels at 48.5 m because it is afraid the embankments will burst if too much water is allowed out of Lough Allen into the Shannon at that point. John Dunne and Deputy Fitzmaurice have highlighted the fact that if the ESB puts in the interlocking sheet piling system it has put in place in other parts of the country, this would alleviate, to a considerable degree, any threat of the embankments bursting because permanent structures would be in place. It is not a very long stretch but it is a significant one. If one thinks about it, 6 ft of water has gone over the sluice gates between October and December. At one point, that water had nowhere else to go but down into Leitrim village and Carrick-on-Shannon. There is no doubt that along with the other proposals in the letter, into which I will not go now as they are very technical, this is a manageable, low-cost approach. It includes, for example, clearance of trees from channels in the vicinity of Jamestown Weir. Jamestown is the next village after Carrick-on-Shannon. The letter also suggests the use of the Albert Canal for flood conveyance by bypassing the restrictions at Jamestown Weir and Charlestown. This would require the installation of simple penstocks at the lock gates, which would only be used once the 12 sluices at Jamestown Weir were open. That means it would be used to truncate peak flows only and would not increase the likelihood of siltation in the canal. That is just one example of the detail into which the group has gone. It also talks about widening the channel at the Leitrim bank opposite Charlestown by 10 m and suggests this would be carried out above summer water levels. As a result, it would not impact on normal levels or spawning areas and could minimise the risk of siltation.

I compliment Deputy Fitzmaurice, my colleague, Deputy Cowen, and others who attended a widely publicised meeting with the European Commission. It addressed this perception that habitat directives are more important than people and that fish, endangered species and insects are of more concern. That has been knocked on the head now. That was the word that came back. There is a flexibility within the habitats directive and I would be grateful if the Minister of State would address that issue. Certainly, that was the message that came back from the meeting. The flexibility is there to allow drainage in particular areas. I am thinking in particular of the initiative at Kinvara to open a channel to the Atlantic which would allow the water to flow out. I have attended the ESB briefings and I recall talking to its representatives about this entire problem. It reminded me of an old cliché my late father used. When I was a child he used to say that he met a woman who used to say "Let us kneel down and say a decade of the rosary for de Valera and the draining of the Shannon". That saying dates back to the foundation of the State. It is not a simple matter of drainage as the Minister of State knows. However, there is a problem with the Shannon. It is like a saucer. If the water pours in, it has nowhere to go and the surrounding area floods. There are ancillary works which, as the Minister of State knows well, can be carried out.

My final plea to the Minister of State is the most important. Mr. John Dunne made sure that I would say this to the Minister of State and I agree that I should. The Minister of State has visited every town and locale throughout the country except Carrick-on-Shannon. At the time of the flooding, he was not in Carrick-on-Shannon. In fact, there was no representative there.