I move:
That Seanad Éireann calls on the Government to commission an up-dating of the Rydell report on the drainage of the River Shannon so that a proper policy can be devised for the development of the river taking into consideration (i) the vast number of agricultural holdings which suffer from severe handicap of occasional and sometimes continuous flooding (ii) the long-term planning for use of the river as a tourist amenity and (iii) the requirements of the State for the use of the river as a source of energy.
I want to express my gratitude to the House and particularly to the Leader of the House for agreeing that this motion be taken and to thank the Minister for coming here to listen to this debate.
The river Shannon affects a vast area of Ireland and, consequently, a substantial number of people. I should like at the outset to outline to the House and to those who might not be familiar with the Shannon and its problems the nature of those problems and to paint a picture of what life along the Shannon is like for those people. The Minister is geographically removed from the Shannon and he may find it useful and helpful to hear what life is like for those affected by it. I am speaking from personal knowledge, living as I do on the banks of the Shannon and knowing intimately many people affected by the Shannon.
The Shannon begins to flood—and I am speaking of the Shannon roughly from Rooskey down to Portumna— taking one year with another, about October. The water continues to creep up for October and reaches its highest point sometime about November and may continue to flood into December. It remains at this high level until mid-April. It is only in the past week that the Shannon level has dropped this year. For people living on the banks of the Shannon, the sight of the water creeping in on their land is something to which they have become used but not reconciled. One can imagine the feelings of a farmer, and, generally, the farmers on the banks of the Shannon are small holders, when he sees his livelihood disappearing under water in October knowing that he will not be able to use whatever area or portion of his holding that remains covered by the flood until the following late Spring. Sometimes the water leaves so late that it is too late to commence any tillage. Sometimes the flood has come up more rapidly than expected and crops of hay have been washed away on the flood. That land is subject to rates and it is aggravating, to say the least, for that farmer to get his rates Bill from the county council and have to pay that bill when the land in respect of which he is paying his hard-earned money is covered by water and is literally useless to him for half the year.
South of Athlone from October to April, if one is driving to the west and looks left while driving across the bridge in Athlone, one can see a huge lake while in the summer one just sees a reasonably sized river. There, visible to the casual passer-by in graphic terms is the actual sight of what this problem means. From that one point literally thousands of acres can be seen covered and from Rooskey right down to Portumna the position is the same. The water comes up, as surely as day follows night, every October and remains until the following April. A vast amount of land is covered and is rendered useless for that critical period.
In addition to the amount of land that is flooded by the main Shannon itself, there are consequences for the various tributaries because the tributaries flood back and vast amounts of land along the tributaries, particularly along the banks of the river Suck are flooded for much the same length of time. The river, therefore, is out of control for the whole winter and a good part of the spring. It has taken over the whole midland area of the country with tremendous adverse consequences to the people living in the area.
In addition, when the river is out of control during that time it is useless as a navigation channel. In recent years the use of the Shannon for recreational navigational purposes has increased vastly, but the volume of water and the fact that the navigation marks are covered by the flood renders it dangerous and unusable. This important tourist activity has to be curtailed. Normally it is a summer activity and the bulk of the use of the Shannon in that regard takes place during the summer months and early autumn. In recent years there has been a tendency for people to hire boats earlier; indeed, at Christmas there is a certain amount of activity on the water but it must be limited because of the flooding.
The uncontrolled volume of water presents problems to the Electricity Supply Board. They have to try to control the volume of water and the volume of flow and this renders their job extremely difficult. The problem is immense and it causes real hardship to a very great number of people. It causes them personal hardship in their individual affairs. Their farming operations can only proceed at half measure and individually they suffer a substantial loss. Nationally, when those individual losses are accumulated the loss is also great. An immense amount of land is out of production for half the year, and because of the effects of flooding and the impossibility of proper farming being conducted on it, the loss nationally is very great.
The amount of land that is involved is in the region of 150,000 to 175,000 acres, between the main Shannon itself and the area of land affected by the tributaries. At the time of the Rydell Report in 1954, the agricultural economist who was advising Dr. Walsh estimated that curing the flooding would increase income from the land in question by approximately £10 per acre per annum. We can increase that sum tenfold nowadays having regard to the differences in money value and to the more sophisticated and better methods of farming that are now available. It might not be an exaggeration, therefore, to say that the loss is in the region of £100 per acre. If we multiply that by the number of acres involved, 150,000 to 175,000, it can be seen that the loss to the national economy is indeed immense. We cannot afford this loss any longer. The immensity of this loss, the size of the problem, the handicap it represents to the national economy and the immense handicap it represents to individual farmers, demands that urgent action be taken to cure this problem once and for all.
Shannon flooding in the past has been regarded as something that was with us and something we could never do anything about. It became a half joke, the joke being that every time there was a by-election somewhere along the Shannon, the promise was that the Shannon was to be drained. Of course, nothing ever happened. In 1954 there were floods of an unprecedented level. Many homes were affected. Families had to be evacuated. Livestock were lost and, in addition to the normal yearly damage, immense extra damage was done. As a consequence of that unprecedented level of flooding, the Government of the day commissioned a report by Colonel Rydell of the United States Army Corps of Engineers and experts in the field of flooding of this magnitude. He prepared his report and recommended certain steps to be taken and certain other studies to be carried out. He conceded the problem was so immense that his investigation was not conclusive and could not be the final word on it. He concluded clearly from his investigation that the problem was soluble but that many extra studies were necessary.
Since then, the use of the river has changed somewhat. At the time he carried out his report the Shannon was used in a very small way for commercial navigation. There were still some barges on it, but the amount of activity and traffic was insignificant. There was no tourist traffic at all as we know it nowadays. There were a number of private boat owners along the Shannon, but there were no hire cruisers as such, and the Shannon as a recreational facility was not used at all. In those days, too, the importance of Ardnacrusha to the national grid was much greater than nowadays when it contributes a comparatively insignificant amount of the total national power requirement.
There have been two significant changes in relation to the Shannon since the Rydell Report was prepared: the greater volume of tourist traffic on it and the changing place of Ardnacrusha in the national power supply. The agricultural position has not changed, and it is my opinion that the prime consideration in any work to be done on the Shannon must have regard to the agricultural implication. When an area of potentially productive land as great as 175,000 acres is involved there is a matter of grave national importance to be attended to. Nevertheless, the other uses made of the river have to be taken into account in any final solution. Happily it would appear from the Rydell Report that a solution of the agricultural problem is not incompatible with leaving the Shannon suitable for navigation by tourist boats, and is not incompatible with the requirements of the Electricity Supply Board to carry out their statutory functions.
What we are asking for in this motion is an up-dating of the Rydell Report particularly taking into account these three uses. The primary use of course, is use as agricultural land. It is quite clear that, if fertile agricultural land is flooded for part of the year, it cannot be used during that time. It is also clear that when the flood has gone from it the farmer cannot operate in the normal manner in which men on high ground can operate. He is limited by his inability to fertilise it. He is limited by his inability to use his flooded land with the rest of his farm and plan his farming operation as a whole coherent operation. It is suggested that flooding brings a certain amount of fertiliser on to the land by reason of the siltation which occurs, but this was rejected by the Rydell Report as being insignificant and would not have anything nearly like the benefit for the land that a proper application of modern scientific fertilisers would have.
We have to consider the effects on the tributaries, mainly the Suck and the Brosna. The river Inny tributary was the subject of an arterial drainage scheme some years ago, and the beneficial effects of that are visible to anyone familiar with that area. They were quite dramatic in raising the standard of livelihood for the farmers living along the river Inny and quite dramatic in improving the quality of the land. It was possible to have that large scheme carried out without doing anything with the main Shannon stem itself. This is one of the puzzling features that farmers in the area cannot understand. When it is suggested, for example, that the Suck and the Brosna should be the subject of arterial drainage schemes and, indeed, the Camlin in County Longford, the answer is sometimes given that we cannot take these in isolation from the main Shannon itself. The Inny is there as an example that, in fact, it can be done. Possibly there are engineering reasons why the other tributaries cannot be done. It may have been a geographic accident that it was possible to do the Inny but not the others. Again, these are the questions which have to be answered to the satisfaction of those living in the area.
The modern farmer is a highly technical person. He is highly organised and he is highly vocal in looking for his rights. The farmers along the banks of the Shannon are highly organised in their own farmers' organisations, and they have now let it be known in no uncertain fashion that they want an answer to this perennial problem. They do not want to be second-class citizens any longer in their own country, having to scrape subsistence living by reason of the geographic location of their farms, when their brothers, living in more fortunate areas, can have a higher standard of living. They ask —and they are entitled to ask—the State now at this stage in 1978, with all the resources and modern technology available, with the increased prosperity of the State available to fund work in this regard, for urgent attention to their problem.
They can see that the problem is a large one but, in recognising that, they also take into account that the resources to deal with it have advanced considerably in the past 20 years. The technology and the cash are now available to a greater degree than they were then. In addition, we have whatever help can become available to us from our membership of the European Community. I note that in recent times there have been reports of substantial funds being made available for certain drainage works in the west. It is getting priorities wrong to consider the west in isolation from the Shannon. The Shannon and the west are part and parcel of the one area.
A substantial effort should be made by the Government in the councils in Brussels to bring home to those people the extent of this problem. The extent of the human problem may not impress people as far away as Brussels, but they might be impressed by the extent of the economic problem when they are told that 175,000 acres of potentially arable land are out of production and out of use, not just for the time the land is flooded but for the entire year as a consequence of the flooding over the winter, early spring and late autumn. If that argument were pushed hard in Brussels it should be possible to get assistance towards doing what admittedly will be a very big task.
In 1978 this is a task which must now be tackled. If all citizens are to have equal opportunities it is now high time that citizens living along the banks of the Shannon, adversely affected by the flooding, had this problem attended to and rectified. The first step towards curing the problem is an updated study of it. Colonel Rydell admitted in his report that further studies were necessary. He indicated the line these studies could take. He also indicated certain solutions he thought feasible on the basis of his study. Incidentally, his solutions took into account the three parties affected by the river: the farmers, the tourists and the requirements of the ESB.
Indeed, he said in his report that, in his opinion, no comparable system can be found anywhere else in the world. He said that in the paragraph in his report on page 18 dealing with the inter-relation between flood control and recreational use. He said its potential for recreational use was immense. That is a tremendous tribute to the river. Undoubtedly, it is true and its truth is now beginning to become known to greater numbers of people. He felt its use for that purpose was not at all incompatible with curing flooding from the point of view of the flooded farmer.
It is essential that there should be an updating of his report and that the various suggestions made by him should be considered. He made suggestions regarding the controlling of the river at various levels: the building of levies, the building of dams, diversions in certain parts, and greater storage in some parts. All these things now deserve and require to be investigated in a thorough manner. As I say, it is something that requires to be done urgently. We cannot continue any longer to have what is a national scandal, a vast amount of arable land out of production, and a vast number of people prejudiced as a result of it. The problem is too big for them to tackle it individually. That goes without saying. They are entitled to look to the community and to the State to solve their problem.
In this motion we are asking the Government to commission an up-dating of the Rydell Report. The amount of dissatisfaction felt in the area is socially undesirable. There is tremendous hostility in the area to the ESB. Many farmers blame the ESB for their predicament, for making the problem worse than nature has made it already. For example, they blame the ESB by alleging that they control the weirs at Athlone and Meelick— in consideration of one factor only, their requirements for Ardnacrusha— without giving any consideration whatever to the effect of that control on the waters behind those weirs on the land upstream.
The ESB say they control them in such a way as to minimise the flooding but, from time to time, there is evidence to suggest that with certain other types of control of the weirs, the problem could be considerably diminished. No satisfactory explanation has been given by the ESB to the farmers in question and naturally, I suppose, they are driven to the conclusion that the ESB are considering their brief first and the farmers second. There should be more openness and frankness on the part of the various authorities as to what their requirements are, and whether their requirements are in any way contributing to or compounding the flooding problem at the moment.
It is suggested that, in order to maintain navigational levels at certain times of the year, the water is being kept unduly high. This is something about which there is a certain vagueness or lack of information. It is very important that these points should be cleared up. There is grave dissatisfaction. There is an amount of social unrest and this is beginning to manifest itself. Quite recently farmers living in the Clondra area in County Longford indicated that they will not permit the ESB to bring high-power lines across their land to serve a new industry being established there by Burlington Industries.
This industry is badly needed in the area to provide employment, but the farmers along the banks of the Shannon, when they see this opportunity to take what appears to them to be industrial action, and when they see every other section of the community taking industrial action, have decided to make their protest in practical terms. If that opportunity presents itself there, it is only a matter of time until similar opportunities occur elsewhere, and social unrest becomes generated as a result. Social unrest is something that we should at all times strive to avoid, because it is not good for the morale or the fabric of the country. In this case it can be avoided, and it should be avoided, because the grievance which inspired it is a very real and serious grievance. It is important that it should be removed.
The first step towards removing it is to update the Rydell Report or, if the people who know best in this technical area decide upon it, to have an entirely new study. What I plead for is speed. Let it be done immediately. From the point at which the brief on the study can be compiled until the study gets under way will obviously take some time. There will be quite a fair lapse of time until the finances are required for it. The point I am making is that there will be no immediate financial demand. All that will be required immediately is the deployment of the technical resources towards making this study.
I would plead with the Minister to deploy those resources immediately. The arguments for doing so are unassailable. They are unassailable on the economic grounds of this vast area of land—between 150,000 and 175,000 acres—practically idle with a potential in money return of an immense size. From a social point of view the arguments are unassailable. A vast number of people are trying to make their livelihood along the river, frustrated in their wish to do so, and condemned to an inferior standard of life to which they are not entitled and which they have done nothing to deserve. This handicapped and prejudiced position in which they find themselves is producing a certain amount of social unrest. When signs of social unrest are beginning to show themselves, the Government of the day have a duty to remove the cause when it is a genuine and reasonable case. It must be common case between all parties that the grievance is genuine and reasonable. That reason, itself, if there were no economic considerations, would justify this motion and would justify us in asking the Government for urgent and thorough action on this problem.
The size of the tourist industry now being generated by the Shannon makes it imperative that the study be undertaken so that the place of tourism on the Shannon can be finally settled. I would not be surprised to see some of this unrest transpose itself into hostility towards some of the tour operators or, even worse, towards the tourists. Nothing like that has happened, and I do not expect it to happen. But if the problem is not solved, it is not beyond the bounds of possibility that some persons more extreme than others may feel some development on those lines is the best way of making their grievance known and of getting action on foot of it.
It is a bad thing that a community should be led to believe that action or a cure for a grievance can come only as a result of activities which are barely legal or, indeed, extra-legal. That is bad for the community. I urge the Minister to avoid any situation in which this agitation and this unrest might grow. As I say, the means are now available in terms of technology and in terms of financial resources to deal with this problem of the Shannon. The arguments for doing it are unassailable. I would put the various interests affected by the Shannon in this order of priority: The farmer first and clearly in the lead; secondly, the tourist interest; and lastly the interest of the Electricity Supply Board. All these interests deserve to have their problems examined and dealt with as speedily as possible. I commend the motion to the House.
