CALLS TO fast-track the building of a reservoir in Co Offaly to supply drinking water from the river Shannon to Dublin and surrounding counties will be discussed today.
TDs and Senators on the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Environment will have talks on the plans today in Dublin.
They will discuss plans to build a reservoir on a 1,500-acre site at Garryhinch, Co Offaly. The location is near the Co Laois town of Portarlington.
The plans have met with strong resistance from campaigners in the Shannon region.
The committee members will meet Bord na Móna executives and managing director Gabriel D’Arcy before travelling to Garryhinch tomorrow.
Bord na Móna says the €480 million development – the first major Irish reservoir to be built in 60 years – would create 1,000 jobs during its three-year construction phase.
The planned lake will store piped water from Lough Derg before it is moved to Dublin.
According to Bord na Móna, a number of permanent positions would be created on completion, with plans for a water sports and tourist amenity incorporating a nature reserve around the 800-acre man-made lake.
The reservoir, which is expected to require 2 per cent of the Shannon’s full capacity flow, would supply water to Dublin, Meath, Kildare and Wicklow and further applications have been made by local authorities in Laois, Offaly and Westmeath.
Laois-based Labour Senator John Whelan insisted there was a critical need for the Government to sanction the project.
The construction of more than 500,000 houses in the past decade without any consideration for basic water supply was absurd, Mr Whelan commented.
“As bizarre as it may seem, Ireland is running out of water, the supply-demand balance is on a knife-edge, and if we don’t take action such as backing the Bord na Móna plan, there will be dire consequences for households, industry, small businesses and farming,” he said.
However, River Shannon Protection Alliance chairman Martin McEnroe disputed the job figures and claimed the plan would have a negative impact on the entire Shannon region. He said more than 50 per cent of the water supply is lost through leakage and urged the Government to concentrate on repairing existing infrastructure.
“This is going to stymie development in the Shannon region,” Mr McEnroe claimed.
“This is all spin. The reality of it is if they interfere with the Shannon they are interfering with a huge ecosystem.”
Mr McEnroe said the Dublin region would be prioritised above the Shannon region should a drought occur. “They see the midlands as an endless supply of water,” he remarked.
“You can’t trust politicians – look at Enda Kenny during the hospital issue.”
Vowing to fight the project, Mr McEnroe said development in the Shannon region would suffer as a result of the planned extraction of water from the Shannon.
Gerry Siney, of the alliance, said thousands of jobs could be created immediately if Dublin City Council employed people to repair leaking city pipes.
Alternative sources of water should have been more thoroughly investigated, added Mr Siney, who said: “This is a madcap proposal, it isn’t necessary and it is going to cause damage.”
Bord na Móna director of strategic infrastructure Colm Ó Gogáin said that the project would have a “negligible” impact on the Shannon.
Initially the reservoir will supply 250 million litres per day but that figure would rise to 350 million in about 10 years, Mr Ó Gogáin explained.
He said that there was an “urgency” in relation to water supply. If all went to plan the reservoir would not be completed until 2020 at the earliest, he added.