Anne Rabbitte (Fianna Fail)

That is okay.

We have to speak honestly about the financial cost and how it feeds into the fear. Dealing with or getting insurance can be impossible for homeowners. When we strip everything back, we have the uncomfortable answer about the laws from the 1930s and the related guidelines. In 2025, the Shannon is still being managed by means of a legal framework that was written in the 1920s and 1930s. I refer, in particular, to the Electricity Supply Board (Supply) (Amendment) Act 1934. The real day-to-day rules are internal ESB regulations and guidelines and protocols observed by the ESB, Waterways Ireland and the OPW. Those internal documents are where we find the normal operating bands for Lough Allen, Lough Ree and Lough Derg, the seasonal target curve for Lough Ree, the drawdown protocols for Lough Allen before winter and the detailed gate rules for Athlone, Meelick and Parteen. For a family whose kitchen has flooded twice or a farmer who lost fodder in 2023, this feels like a black box. They cannot see the rules clearly. They cannot see the trade-offs, and they cannot see where their voice fits into the decision making.

Alongside the guidelines to which I refer sits a 1934 Schedule full of level bands in feet, ordnance datum, OD, written at a time when the river was mainly seen as a reservoir for electricity generation as opposed to a living system to support communities, farming, navigation, tourism, biodiversity and changing climate.Our Bill is trying to undertake a human-centred first step. This is the background to the Electricity (Supply) (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill 2025 that Senator Daly and I are bringing to this House. This Bill is not about clever legal words for their own sake but about starting to bring the law into line with the reality people are living with.

The Bill amends Schedule 1 of the 1934 Act to remove rigid outdated level bans for Lough Derg and Lough Allen that no longer reflect how the system operates and that do nothing to help us with climate change-driven flood risks. It updates Lough Ree’s provision so it clearly states the ESB’s purpose is to control the level of the water in the lake and, for that purpose, to execute works. This may sound technical but it is crucial. It puts water level control and not just historical electricity storage at the heart of the statutory mandate. It clarifies that the works may include dredging new channels and deepening existing channels where works are appropriate and pass all environmental and planning tests.

We are very clear that the Bill does not override planning law, environmental law or any protections we might rightly have in place. It does not say we should go and dredge everything in sight. It updates the core powers so that where works are needed to protect communities and manage the river safely, the ESB is not constrained by archaic wording drafted before most of the current population was born. Earlier attempts to do this in 2017 and 2021 fell with the dissolution of the various Governments. The message we are getting from the people along the River Shannon now after the summer floods of 2023, on top of those in 2009 and 2015 and 2016, is that waiting is no longer acceptable.