Seanad debates

Thursday, 2 March 2017

Heritage Bill 2016: Committee Stage (Resumed)

 

10:30 am

Photo of Kevin HumphreysKevin Humphreys (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I also want to recognise that. Most Senators had tabled similar amendments in respect of that and it is good to recognise local authorities' very strong role in it.

Can I just go back to Senator Norris's comments in respect of maintaining navigation? Can I give the Minister a practical example of this? We are speaking about it in the abstract and of course navigation is being interfered with. I refer to the lock gates coming from the Liffey into the basin. The Minister will know the area reasonable well. For ten years, if not more, those locks have been taken out of operation, which has impeded navigation. There is no way to do it because only small vessels can come in. The larger lock to bring in larger vessels has been taken out by Waterways Ireland. We have not been able to get them repaired and it impedes navigation.

In fairness to the Minister's predecessor, Jimmy Deenihan, he wanted to fund the repair of those lock gates because he saw the benefit of making sure larger boats could go into it, but because of the co-funding between the North and South and being unable to get agreement on funding from the North on a proportional basis, those gates are just lying there. Navigation has been impeded in the whole inner basin.

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