*A formal objection has been lodged by councillors.
EAST CLARE councillors have formally objected to plans to extract water from the River Shannon to pipe Dublin’s leaking water network and have received the backing of fellow councillors from across the county for their stance.
In a submission attached to Council Chief Executive Gordon Daly’s report on the Water Supply Project for the Eastern and Midlands Region, elected members in the Killaloe Municipal District called on An Coimisiún Pleanála to refuse Uisce Éireann permission to proceed with their development.
Uisce Éireann applied in December for planning permission for the largest water project in Irish history. It proposes constructing a 170km steel pipeline that will pump drinking water from the River Shannon, at the Parteen Basin below Lough Derg, to the Midlands, Eastern and Greater Dublin area. The water utility proposes to abstract a maximum of 2% of the average river flow. The estimated cost of the underground pipe is €4.6 billion, but could potentially cost up to €10bn.
For the first time since his appointment last April, Daly received some resistance from councillors who were determined to see their submission included with his report.
Cllr Tony O’Brien (FF) said that Daly’s report “isn’t strong and enough and it doesn’t reflect the view of Clare County Council. Missing clearly from your report is our objection as a Council to the abstraction. I disagree with you and your assessment that it is part of the strategic national development plan, it is transferring water from the Mid-West to another region which is Dublin and it is not in national interests, it is in the interests of greater Dublin area”.
Killaloe based O’Brien labelled the Chief’s report as “lenient” on the abstraction of the water and which omitted assessing alternative water supply options. He called it “a nonsense of a project”. He told the meeting that in 2018 ESB had to close down Ardnacrusha Power Plant for 74 days due to low water supply. “This isn’t us versus them, don’t turn this into the Mid-West vs Dublin, there’s alternatives to the project, figures are almost €7bn for this project, there’s groundwater alternatives and harvesting which haven’t been explored”.
Daly explained to the meeting that his report did not need to be adopted and that elected members could include their submission as an attachment. He said his report set out concerns on the impact to tourism and recreation while observing planning and environmental issues. He said he was “limited in the report” due to legislation which “doesn’t provide the Council to make a submission in favour or against anything” and similarly “doesn’t allow for my report to comment on alternatives or the merit of the project”.
According to the Chief Executive, the Council does “have concerns in relation to the proposed development” and that its report “calls out where we feel there are deficits in the information”. He told councillors, “You’re not as constrained by the legislation as what I am in terms of the views that can be put in the report”.
Mitigation measures have been not been made clear in the environmental assessment report, Cllr Pat Hayes (FF) flagged, “It fails to demonstrate in my view that there won’t be environmental impact. We feel the report isn’t strong enough, the report from Killaloe Municipal District is in front of you and was sent to everyone”. On the subject of balanced regional development, he said, “we want a balance and growth of our areas, we’re supporting the growth of balanced areas at what costs”.
Farming and living on the shores of Lough Derg, Cllr Pat Burke (FG) said, “for the last fifteen years I’ve been saying no to extracting water for the Dublin area”. He added, “Maybe it is not my generation or the next but the potential to do harm to the River Shannon system is my biggest concern”.
Taking water from East Clare and North Tipperary to benefit Dublin and the Midlands is not balanced regional development, Cllr Conor Ryan (FG) argued.
According to Cllr Joe Killeen (FF), Daly’s report was “mild mannered”. Piping water all the way to Dublin “presents great concern for the county”. He continued, “The Shannon is an area we should be able to benefit from, it is now very important in the development of the eastern side of the country”.
Supporting the inclusion of the submission from East Clare elected members, Cllr Michael Begley (IND) stressed that it cannot “get lost between the cracks or between an official report and one of a lesser value”. Cllr Tom O’Callaghan (FF) commented, “We’re basically going to provide water for Dublin, it defies logic, are they addressing their own leaks, are we creating a short-term solution”.
Opposing the project, Cllr Michael Shannon (FF) questioned, “in a drought who controls the water siphoned up the Shannon. If this takes off, the control of the Shannon and water in Shannon will be transferred to Dublin”. He claimed that Uisce Éireann was only set up for two reasons, “this project and to charge people for water, the second one has failed, this was the other reason Irish Water was set up, keep Dublin growing, for industry and development”.
Labelling it “the most outrageous plan in the world to transport water from our county to the other side of the country,” Cllr Tommy Guilfoyle (SF) stressed, “this project should not go ahead at a time when money is needed for services to build houses, schools and health care, this is wasteful beyond extreme, Irish Water has been wasteful since its creation”. He added, “It makes no sense, every man and woman in this room knows if anything goes wrong and water is needed in Dublin and Clare, we know where the water will go”.
Mayor of Clare, Cllr Paul Murphy (FG) said councillors “have a duty of care to the future, this is about protecting the potential future economic development of our county”.
