BORD na Mona was not responsible for flooding caused by the River Shannon, a Dail committee has heard. "We will not accept that our activities are causing flooding," Mr John Gallagher, assistant secretary to the company, said yesterday.
However, he added that the company accepted that silt had been deposited and that the company had to use the best available technology to deal with it.
Mr Gallagher was addressing a sub-committee of the Joint Committee on Enterprise and Transport on the proposed River Shannon authority. While the company had no objection to the authority, he said it wanted to look at the legislation and reserve the right to comment on it.
Mr Willie Penrose TD (Lab our) said while there were many bodies dealing with the Shannon, no one body had overall responsibility to ensure that standards set and guidelines laid down were implemented and adhered to.
One of the biggest problems Bord na Mona had, he said, was removing silt from the Shannon. The perception was that the river had become significantly more silted in the past 10 years or so.
The committee chairman, Mr Sean Doherty TD (FF), said the company had admitted responsibility for 50 per cent of the silting of the river. "How does it stand up in any mathematical configuration that that silting would not displace water?" This, he said, had to be causing raised water, irrespective of whether there was flooding. If there was a reduction of water, even by inches, it would make an extraordinary difference to the communities living near the river.
Mr Tom O'Donnell, senior engineer with Bord na Mona, said a survey of the Shannon 15 years ago revealed that 50 per cent of the material found was peat silt. The company believed that the 50 per cent was not all its silt, he said, adding people did not realise that much of the silt in the Shannon was not peat silt.