COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC ACCOUNTS debate -
Thursday, 4 Jul 2024

Apologies have been received from Deputies Ciarán Cannon, Imelda Munster and John Brady. You are all very welcome. I remind all of those in attendance to make sure that your mobile phones are switched off or on silent mode. Before we start, I wish to explain some limitations to parliamentary privilege and the practice of the Houses as regards references you may make to other persons in your evidence. The evidence of witnesses physically present or who will give evidence from within the parliamentary precincts is protected, pursuant to both Constitution and statute, by absolute privilege. This means that you have an absolute defence against any defamation action for anything you say at the meeting. However, you are expected not to abuse this privilege and it is my duty as Cathaoirleach to ensure that is not abused. Therefore, if your statements are potentially defamatory in relation to an identifiable person or entity, you will be directed to discontinue your remarks and it is imperative that you comply.

Members and witnesses are reminded of the long-standing parliamentary practice to the effect that you should not comment on, criticise or make charges against a person outside the Houses of the Oireachtas or an official by name or in such a way as to make her him or her identifiable. Members are also reminded of the provision of Standing Order 218, that the committee shall refrain from inquiring into the merits of a policy or policies of the Government or a Minister of the Government or the merits or the objectives of such a policy.

The Comptroller and Auditor General, Mr. Seamus McCarthy, is a permanent witness to the committee. He is accompanied this morning by Ms Olivia Somers, deputy director at the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

We are engaging with representatives of Waterways Ireland to examine the following matters: financial statements 2022, Waterways Ireland. We are joined by the following representatives from Waterways Ireland: Mr. John McDonagh, chief executive officer; Ms Patricia McCaffrey, head of finance; Ms Linda Megahey, director of finance and personnel; Mr. Éanna Rowe, operations controller; and Mr. Kieran Kelly, chair of audit and risk committee. We are also joined by the following officials from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage: Mr. Eoghan O'Brien, assistant principal officer; and Ms Ciara Carberry, principal officer. You are all very welcome.

Waterways Ireland is a North-South implementation body created as part of the Good Friday Agreement. Its functional remit is the management, maintenance, development and restoration of inland navigable waterways on the island of Ireland, principally for recreational purposes. It is also the leading provider of greenways across the island. As a North-South body, Waterways Ireland operates under the policy direction of the North-South Ministerial Council and the two Governments. It receives its main funding from the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage and the Northern Ireland Department for Infrastructure. Waterways Ireland is accountable to the Northern Ireland Assembly and the Houses of the Oireachtas.

The 2022 financial statements indicate that Waterways Ireland had income of just over €57.8 million in the year. This was up from €50.5 million in 2021. Waterways Ireland received revenue funding of €35.3 million from its sponsoring Departments in 2022. Of this, €30.7 million, or 87%, was received from the Department of Housing and the balance of €4.6 million was received from the Department for Infrastructure.

Capital grants of €14.9 million were received in 2022, of which €13.2 million, or 88%, was received from the Department of Housing. The funding split reflects the distribution between the two jurisdictions of the navigable waterways and capital projects currently under way.

Income from Waterways Ireland's operational activities includes receipts from navigation usage such as permits, winter moorings, lock tolls and dry dock charges and rents. These income sources amounted to €1.35 million in 2022, about 2.3% of the total income.

Waterways Ireland incurred expenditure of €61.4 million in 2022, resulting in a deficit of €3.6 million for the year. This followed a break-even in 2021. The accumulated deficit at the end of 2022 was €7.5 million. The annual report and financial statements are jointly audited by me and the Northern Ireland comptroller and auditor general. We issued a clear audit opinion on the 2022 financial statements.

I thank the Chair and members for the opportunity to make a brief opening statement to assist the committee in its examination of the financial statements for 2022. I am chief executive officer and Accounting Officer of Waterways Ireland. I am joined by my colleagues, Ms Linda Megahey, director of finance and personnel; Mr. Éanna Rowe, operations controller; Ms Patricia McCaffrey, head of finance; and Kieran Kelly, chair of our independent audit and risk committee. I hope it is helpful if I outline briefly our role and governance structure, along with the dressing annual accounts for 2022.

Waterways Ireland is a cross-Border body established in 1999. This year we celebrate our twenty-firth anniversary. We are the largest of six North-South implementation bodies created as part of the implementation of the Belfast Good Friday Agreement of 10 April 1998. We are the navigation authority responsible for the management, maintenance, development and promotion of 1,100 km of inland navigation waterways, principally for recreational purposes. We are also the leading provider of greenways, with 600 km of trails across the island of Ireland.

Waterways Ireland's vision is creating inspirational inland navigations and waterways experiences through conservation and sustainable development for all. I have listed the eight navigations in my presentation.

Our headquarters is in Enniskillen, County Fermanagh, with offices in Dublin, Carrick-on-Shannon and Scariff. We employ 362 permanent staff, located at offices in sites closed to Inland Waterways. They are assisted by a team of seasonally recruited staff, reflecting the seasonality of the organisation's remit.

Our navigations traverse 20 counties and 24 local authority areas. These local authorities, along with Fáilte Ireland, are key partners in developing facilities, services and developmental projects on and along our waterways.

We provided an outline of these projects in our submission.

To give the committee a flavour of the work we undertake, I will outline a small sample of the projects which span the country and with which the committee may be familiar. We recently completed phase 2 of the Ulster Canal. This cross-Border project was technically challenging. It was a project of scale completed within 22 months with a very successful outcome. We were pleased to have senior leaders of both Governments present to mark the occasion in Clones on 19 June. The Royal Canal greenway, which is Ireland’s longest greenway, attracted 670,000 users and provided an economic stimulus of more than €17 million in its first year of operation. Other projects include the redevelopment of Meelick weir, which was originally built in the 1840s, with a 300 m walkway connecting Meelick in Galway to Lusmagh in Offaly; the ongoing joint development of the Barrow blueway and the Grand Canal greenway; the transformation of Connaught Harbour in Portumna, Galway from a working depot to a new visitor destination with berthing for 30 craft, associated services and EV charging points; and the Shannon tourism masterplan in collaboration with Fáilte Ireland and the ten local authorities adjoining the River Shannon and Shannon-Erne Waterway. The Shannon tourism masterplan, with a funding commitment of €76 million over the life of the plan, will continue to have a substantial impact on the tourism offering in the west and in the midlands. In 2024, we intend to progress the Barrow tourism masterplan along similar lines to the Shannon tourism masterplan in collaboration with local authorities in Kildare, Laois, Carlow and Kilkenny.

As a cross-Border body, we operate under the policy direction of the North-South Ministerial Council and the two Governments. We are accountable to the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Northern Ireland Assembly. We report to our sponsor Departments, namely, the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage in Dublin and the Department for Infrastructure in Belfast. The Ministers of the sponsored Departments are accountable to the Northern Ireland Assembly or Dáil Éireann for the activities and performance of the body. These responsibilities, in accordance with the financial memorandum, include approving the body's strategic objectives and the policy and performance framework; keeping the Assembly and Dáil Éireann informed about the body’s performance; and securing approval for the amount of grant to be paid to the body. Funding is voted on by the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Northern Ireland Assembly. Current resource funding is reflective of the distribution of the waterways within each jurisdiction, that is, 15% provided by Northern Ireland and 85% by Ireland. Capital infrastructure programmes are funded separately by the jurisdiction where the works are carried out. Waterways Ireland may also receive third-party funding from our partnerships with the shared island fund, the rural regeneration and development fund, Fáilte Ireland and local authorities. Our operational performance objectives are agreed with both sponsoring Departments. We report against these objectives in our quarterly monitoring meetings.

Waterways Ireland annual reports and accounts are audited through the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General in Ireland and the Northern Ireland Audit Office. The audited annual report and accounts are submitted to the North-South Ministerial Council and to both Comptrollers and Auditors General. Following certification, these documents are laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Northern Ireland Assembly. We have an independent audit and risk committee comprised of independent and non-executive members. Its primary role is to assist me, that is, the Accounting Officer, to fulfil my oversight responsibilities and duties. A board for Waterways Ireland was not provided for at the time of the body’s formation. Instead, the functions of the board are exercised by the CEO. In May 2021, the North-South Ministerial Council agreed that officials will explore options for the establishment of a board. This matter remains within the remit of the North-South Ministerial Council for consideration.

Waterways Ireland financial statements for 2022 have been laid before the Houses of the Oireachtas and the Northern Ireland Assembly. The accounts are unqualified and no issues are outstanding. The draft annual report and accounts for 2023 are currently with the Comptroller and Auditor General. Total expenditure in 2022 was €61 million, of which 51% was expended on staffing costs and pension costs. Staffing includes management and technical, administrative, professional and operational staff. A sum of €10 million was expended on programme costs including projects and maintenance on our navigations; €8 million was expended on administrative and running costs; and €10 million represents the depreciation costs on our assets. I ask the committee to note that points 7.1 and 7.2 in our financial statements outline capital additions, including €7 million for the Ulster Canal, €1.7 million for the Barrow blueway, €1.5 million for the Portumna development and €2.3 million for the fleet and plant startegy improvement programme. The details of our accounts are set out on page 42. The deficit for the period was €3.631 million. The deficit for 2021 was €11,000. The increase in deficit in 2022 was primarily a result of provisions for legal cases based on changes to estimates of potential future liabilities to the organisation.

I thank the committee and I welcome questions from members.

I thank Mr. McDonagh. Recently, I had communications from the committee that the issue of fencing on the canal would be raised with him. He sent the committee a photograph of tents. I am not too sure why we received that. We were aware of the situation with tents along the canal because it is not too far from here and also because there is considerable media coverage in that regard. For clarity, I wish to ask Mr. McDonagh who ordered the fencing to go up along the canal. Was that an initiative of Waterways Ireland?

I welcome all the witnesses before the committee this morning. The first thing I wish to touch on is the fact that there is now a deficit of €3.6 million. Getting to understand why that occurred is important. It is also notable that between the 2021 figures and the 2022 figures, there was a substantial jump in expenditure. When I was going through the document before today’s meeting, I noticed, when it comes to salaries, that the figure seemed to be quite high for an organisation with approximately 306 full-time employees. Is that figure of 306 employees correct?

The €27 million to which the Deputy is referring in 2021 includes €10 million for pension costs. The actual costs for our employees were €16 million. We disclose our pension liability, which is the cost for an additional year of pension for the entire staffing complement within Waterways Ireland. That is part of the accounting convention. We have to include pension costs as part of our staffing costs.

Between 2021 and 2022, there was an increase from €27 million in costings to €32 million in staffing costs. I wish to get an insight as to why there was a €5 million jump in the space of 12 months. As I said at the start of my contribution, Waterways Ireland now has a €3.6 million deficit in the year we are examining, which is 2022.

First, to touch on the payroll for 2022, the Deputy will see that pension costs between 2021 and 2022 increased by €3.5 million. That contributes to that cost. The remaining increase in the staffing costs during 2022 relates to payments as a result of the Building Momentum pay agreement. That is approximately €1 million of those costs during 2022.

That would account for the increase in the payroll costs between 2021 and 2022.

On the deficit for the year increasing from €11,000 to €3 million, within the financial year 2022 we account for accruals, pre-payments and predominantly provision movements. Our provision movements relate to claims on the body for potential incidents and accidents on our waterways. The State Claims Agency handles the majority of our cases in respect of those claims and provides us with an annual report.

Note No. 13, which we received, indicates that Waterways Ireland total revisions at the end of 2022, around contingent liability and provisions, were at about €11 million. That was an increase then again of €3.45 million on the provision of €7.56 million at the end of 2021. The increase equates to an additional provision of about €3.9 million. What was the reason for the substantial increase in provisions or settlements in 2023?

The State Claims Agency assesses the potential liability to Waterways Ireland. As a result of their figures we then reflect the potential cost to Waterways Ireland in our accounts. This is for a number of claims throughout the whole organisation. This does fluctuate depending on the type and number of claims.

To give an example, there are effectively 27 claims being managed by the State Claims Agency in the eastern region. The eastern region would cover the operational areas of the Barrow navigation, the Barrow line, the Grand Canal main line, the Naas branch of the Grand Canal, the Grand Canal docks in Dublin, the Royal Canal main line, the Longford branch and the Spencer Dock. It is over 400 km of navigation and 250 km of greenways and blueways. That is just an example of a plethora of claims in that particular area. There are 27 claims being managed by the State Claims Agency totalling €9.2 million. .

Waterways Ireland is on a programme of improvement around health and safety with the ambition of achieving ISO accreditation. That programme is across many platforms, including a complete review of our health and safety functions, additional resourcing into the health and safety function in Waterways Ireland and, indeed, reviewing our work practices and the manner in which we undertake that work. At the centre of our offering are public open spaces. As Mr. McDonagh has said, the vast majority of the claims that we face are public liability claims from slips, trips and falls.

I want to discuss houseboats and the significant increase in fees to berth around the Grand Canal Dock area. On the one hand, we are looking at an organisation that is running a deficit. On the other hand, we have residents involved and people who are passionate about what they do. Looking at what has been proposed, there has been an increase of €578 annually which increases the fee up to €4,000 for houseboat dwellers in the Grand Canal Dock area, and the fee will increase to €7,500 over six years. To me, that sounds very excessive. Do our witnesses appreciate how steep an increase that is for those affected?

The answer is yes. Affordability is a key factor in determining the outcome for fees. To give some context, at this stage there are probably at least five different sources of fee calculations. We had some work completed initially by KPMG. It set out some fees that it felt were appropriate. Subsequently, we had fees that went out to the first revision of the by-laws and then there was a second revision. We have also seen fee calculations by the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland. The association looked at all of this and conducted a review. We are currently looking again at the affordability aspect of the fees in respect of the revision of the by-laws.

If you come from a very low base then you will end up with a very high percentage. Maybe to stay on the point, if you look, for example, at some of the numbers, they are in place for over 30 years. The key aspect around the revision of the by-laws has less to do with fees and more to do with regulation of the waterways. It is a governance issue for us. It would be like me coming in here today and not having any governance around our financial statements. We have 1,100 km of waterways and in the specific areas around the canals, under the Shannon Navigation Act, we are trying to bring them up to date and make them fit for purpose because they are no longer fit for purpose. That is a primary goal.

I know, and I appreciate Mr. McDonagh’s point on governance. Governance is important and a key part of any organisation. Those affected are looking at the €5 million jump in staffing costs over a 12-month period and a significant jump in the liabilities that have to be paid out. In fairness, accidents happen and claims are made. Unfortunately, we know there is a cultural issue with claims in Ireland alongside genuine claims being made. However, this is an excessive increase in costs over a limited time. If what Mr. McDonagh is saying is correct, it points to a policy failure, in that Waterways Ireland did not make adjustments previously and is now panicking to try to get it done over a six-year period, increasing the fee to €4,000 and on up to €7,500. That is my interpretation of the issue.

I do not want to spend any more time on the matter because other members will address it as well. Was Waterways Ireland contacted by officials in the Department of integration about the necessity to erect fencing on the Grand Canal Dock or was it Waterways Ireland’s decision to contact the Department or officials from IPAS about the matter?

We came to that decision in early May. I believe the first tent removal we were involved in was in or around 9 May. After three or four major tent removals, which ran throughout May, it became clear that we needed to find a solution that actually stopped tents moving from one location to another. The solution we proposed was to put in place fencing.

That is astonishing, although I am not giving out to the witnesses about it.

I am based in Ranelagh in Dublin, and I regularly walk along the canals. It is fair to say that it is a hideous eyesore in terms of what has happened. There is the question of balance in that if we remove them, do we have a situation where a huge encampment of tents arises again? Waterways Ireland made the decision to erect the fencing. Did it have a discussion with any of the NGOs or charities involved that were giving tents to those who were taking up emergency sheltering on the canal at the time to stop them from doing so?

To give a of background very quickly, Waterways Ireland has removed more than 330 tents from the Grand Canal over the five weeks since 9 May, which was when the first removal took place. We worked in partnership with other agencies, IPAS, the Dublin Region Homeless Executive, Dublin City Council, DCC, the HSE and An Garda Síochána to undertake these multiagency activities. Our primary concern is health and safety. The canal banks are not appropriate sites for tented encampments. We would all agree on that. In fact, the picture we sent through, which the Chair referenced, shows exactly how dangerous these tented encampments were on the banks of our canals, not only at deep lock structures but also on jetties and at waiting jetties beside deep water. The public health-----

There is an awful lot in this, and my time is coming to an end. I will come back in this matter in the second round of questioning. What does Mr. McDonagh see the medium-term plan being there? Is Waterways Ireland going to leave the fencing in place or is it intended to remove it, particularly now that we are in the midst of summer? Is it too high a risk to remove the fencing?

We see it is a very unsightly short-term solution. We accept that fact that aesthetically, it is not what it should be, and we accept the fact that for an amenity recreational space, it does not look great. We have considered four options with regard to this point. I am happy for Mr. Rowe to take the Deputy through the four options.

Option 1 was to remove the fencing and allow free access to the canal banks again. Option 2 was to remove the fencing and bring in 24-hour patrolling. Option 3 was to leave the fencing in place in the longer term until the situation was resolved, which is outside of our power. Option 4 was to accelerate the implementation of plans we already have in place with partners, including DCC, to undertake a landscaping and biodiversity programme along our city canals. We can remove the fencing because that landscaping is happening.

I thank the witnesses for their presentation and for the briefing material. We are in high danger of a Paddy Kavanagh quote at some stage, but that can wait. I want to pick up on a number of points Deputy O'Connor made. I will move through them relatively quickly. On staffing costs, in the context of pay rates for directors, a top rate of €107,141 is listed on page 34 of the accounts. Does that capture Mr. McDonagh's pay rate as CEO?

Very good. That is a more than satisfactory answer. I was not sure whether it included the CEO grade or not.

I want to ask another question arising from the annual accounts. Waterways Ireland is running this €3.6 million deficit, but it has €10.7 million cash on the books. It just seems like a lot of cash. I would have an issue. I remember serving on a board of management in a school. There would not have been that level of cash. Having that much cash lying around is not always a great idea. Can Mr. McDonagh explain to me why there is a need for a cash reserve of that size?

Our cash reserves are made up of our sterling bank account and euro bank account but also a reserve bank account, which is a pot of money we have got with regard to proceeds we have received from sale of property. We got agreement from our sponsor Department to hold that money to fund future capital projects in the South only. At the end of the 2022 financial year, it was €5.9 million. That money is ring-fenced to be used for future southern capital projects.

The witnesses get my point around having quite so much cash lying around. It is not something I would feel comfortable about, but if it is ring-fenced and set beside projects that are in the future then that answers my question in that sense.

Another question I want to ask in this general financial space is about how 93% of Waterways Ireland's assets are these operational assets. These are the canals. I am leaving the situation on the Grand Canal in Dublin to one side. I would use stronger language in respect of it. In general, however, the networks feel a little unloved and neglected to me in any case. I want to ask about the spend per kilometre and whether Mr. McDonagh could put that against international comparators. What are we spending per kilometre on our canal network here versus, let us say, Scotland or England, which would be the closest comparators?

When we looked the last time, it was in and around €32,000 per kilometre. This is going back a couple of years ago. At that point, we were below the average of our comparator set, in some cases by factors of two or three times. Relatively speaking, therefore, our spend on our canals is significantly lower than comparators in other countries, particularly in Europe.

We can do zero carbon freight movement in canals into urban centres. This is what they were designed for, and it can decarbonise freight journeys. Is there any strategy? I know it is slower, that it is an infrastructure of the past and all the rest of it, but have there been any case studies done or any research carried out to see if it might be viable? They are moving stuff in Britain on canals still.

On the other thing that our canals could usefully be used for, my cousin is a carpenter. His first house was a houseboat. He bought one, fitted it out and he and his partner lived very happily there for many years. When they started their family, they decided that maybe a canal was not the best place for a toddler, which I can understand. According to Waterways Ireland's figures, we have 150 houseboats. Can Mr. McDonagh tell me how many residential extended mooring permits we have granted?

Has Waterways Ireland undertaken any sort of study on the potential carrying capacity for people who could live on canals? These are delicate networks from the point of view of pollution, etc. We are in the middle of a housing crisis, so I am thinking about a single person or a two-person family. These are potential solutions. I do not think this is kooky. I do not think it is crazy. In Manchester, London and Birmingham, many people live very comfortably on canals. It can be quite suitable for a small family, an older couple, etc. Has any research been done on the potential carrying capacity? Given that we are in the middle of a housing crisis, has there been an investigation into whether there is capacity to provide more housing units on our canals?

This is connected to our ambition to update our by-laws. The two issues are connected. Currently, we have a draft investment programme for houseboats on our canals. It is in draft form, and it looks at increasing the provision of service houseboat moorings to cater for more than 170 houseboats. It will take us between five and seven years to develop that because houseboat moorings are subject to planning permission. The larger phase of this, which Mr. McDonagh mentioned, is to identify lands that may be available to develop off-cut marinas that could cater for sizeable numbers of houseboats. We have a plan in draft to invest in houseboat serviced moorings. That could deal with the exact question the Deputy posed.

I warned the witnesses that a quotation from Patrick Kavanagh was probably incoming:

Commemorate me thus beautifully

Where by a lock niagarously roars

Is Paddy Kavanagh's bench behind a fence.

Is the canal recreation, activation and animation plan consistent? The witnesses gave their response to the climate action plan, but there is now also the national biodiversity action plan, which is on a statutory footing. Will those two plans go hand in hand? Whatever about the climate aspect of the canals - and that aspect is not inconsiderable - the biodiversity aspect of is far richer and far more valuable. Does Waterways Ireland have a plan in place to respond to the national biodiversity action plan?

We have just launched a ten-year plan on heritage and biodiversity. It has gone out for consultation. It is consistent with our overall strategy, which is one of our six priorities in the area of sustainability. The climate action plan has been in place for a couple of years, as the Deputy probably knows. All those things are advancing consistently and in alignment with one another.

There a number of issues I want to address, but I have to explore the concept of not having a board. I do not have much experience of an organisation that does not have a board. How does that work in terms of governance and oversight of the CEO? I am not suggesting that there is anything wrong, but I am just inquisitive.

We are likely to get into the day-to-day details of particular issues of employment, etc., that a board would often deal with in regard to a CEO. Issues regularly arise here there are very small details but can have very serious implications for the organisation. The concept of developing a board going forward is an issue that we need to keep an eye on. Perhaps recommendations from this committee might support the process that Waterways Ireland-----

I thank the Deputy. We are aware that there is consideration of whether there should be a board in Waterways Ireland. As my colleague, the Comptroller and Auditor General, has said, Waterways Ireland is one of two North-South bodies that does not currently have a board. The matter is being examined by the North-South Ministerial Council, which will come to a decision on it.

We do this jointly with the sponsor Departments. As has been outlined, the North-South body operates quite differently. There is an extensive amount of contact and co-operation between our Department in Dublin and the Department for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland. We meet very regularly. We probably do have more layers in there than with a State agency that operates in just one jurisdiction. There are always far wider considerations at play because the functions of North-South bodies are wider than their immediate operational functions as well-----

Yes, but every organisation needs an oversight structure for its CEO. I just do not believe the current arrangements that have been outlined are satisfactory.

I want to return to the issue of the Grand Canal and the encampments. Ultimately, it is an amenity for the city. I represent an area where there is often antisocial behaviour in different forms, for example, playgrounds might be set on fire, or there might be late-night activity in a park. You never cede the territory to the anti-social behaviour. Once you start to do that, you are on a slippery slope where you have to close down public amenities. Even in the short term, the barriers are not satisfactory. I appreciate that there might be additional costs to maintaining it open and removing the tents, etc., but the first port of call has to be to leave it open, rather than it being a destination, hope or ambition. Does the Department accept that?

We want to maintain the amenity, but if we take the fencing down immediately, the only thing that will happen is that the tents will come back on board again. I should say, if the Deputy does not mind, when the tents were in place lots of people were asking us to remove them, such as residents' associations, businesses, representatives of Government, etc. The tents have been removed and the fencing has gone up. Now many people, such as residents, businesses and many others, are asking us to take the fencing down.

I am aware of the incident in 2020 on the Royal Canal which involved the removal of a tent and the injury of a man. This is something Waterways Ireland does on a regular basis. My point is that the amenity has to be reopened. That is the objective. Not reopening the amenity is not an option. It is not as if there are four options. There is only one option and that is to reopen the amenity. There might be costs which accrue from that and claims can be made to Departments, but reopening the amenity has to be the number 1 objective.

To give a bit of context, we have previously removed property and tents from the canals, as the Deputy has described, but never at this scale. On 9 May, we removed 107 tents from the location at Huband Bridge. On 23 May, we removed 89 tents from Wilton Terrace. On 30 May, we removed 87 tents. We had never before dealt with it at this scale.

The issue with security is that we are dealing with a 2 km stretch of waterway. That is four times the length of Grafton Street, to put it into context. The tented encampments arrived overnight, in an organised fashion, starting with 20 or 30 tents and growing very quickly. Our overriding concern is for health and safety and public health. There are no sanitary facilities along the canals and we are dealing with deep water in these locations.

I fully accept the Deputy's point. Our ambition, as I said already, is to accelerate a programme of animation and activation on this stretch of the Grand Canal. We had undertaken a really important study with Dublin City Council to bring more recreation and more amenity to these wonderful waterways running through the city.

Dublin City Council has a lot of experience of dealing with activity in areas much larger than the area being talked about here. The basic principle here is that the amenity must remain open. The costs being incurred are costs to close it, whereas we should be directing the costs to open it. I will finish on that point.

No, it would involve putting in place an initiative around landscaping, design, architecture, animation and activation. That is the option we would move to. In terms of procuring, executing and implementing, that is going to take a couple of months or so. That is the position. If, between now and then-----

There has been discussion about Dublin City Council's plan for open spaces. Obviously, there are structures there that are possibly unauthorised. Has there been any engagement in that regard? We all understand the context of this, but if a structure is put up, permission is required for it. Has Waterways Ireland got permission from Dublin City Council? Has it engaged with the council in relation to permission in relation to these structures?

We will all come back in the second round because there are a lot of questions to be asked. I want to start by talking about the restoration of the Ulster Canal. This was funded by the shared island unit and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage here. We have been told that 15% of the island's waterways are in Northern Ireland and 85% are in the Republic of Ireland. What contribution was made from Northern Ireland to the project?

One of the things that is a concern relates to other parts of the system. There seems to be quite a dramatic reduction in the number of people who are using the waterways for navigation purposes in cruisers and so on. Does Mr. McDonagh have a rationale for why that is happening? For example, costs are part of it. Has Waterways Ireland done, or is it doing, an analysis on that? If Waterways Ireland is going to make a big investment, one would expect that it would be looking at who is going to use this. I can see that the greenway side is being heavily used but there is a loss in the number of navigation movements.

I do not think that is the aspect. At the moment, in our analysis, a number of things are jumping out. The first is the impact of Covid on people wanting to take a holiday. Many people in Ireland decided to take a holiday outside of Ireland rather than, for example, take a holiday on a cruise boat, so that was one thing. The second is that the German market has declined in terms of the number of people who use the boats on the River Shannon. They are a big segment.

Did Waterways Ireland do any analysis, such as surveys, of the people who formerly came? Is it possible to do that? Is it cost that is the impediment? There is a Waterways Ireland charge but there are also other charges for businesses along the way, for example, rates and other taxes. Is that feeding into making it unattractive?

It is a factor. If we take something like fuel costs, for argument’s sake, there was a substantial rise in fuel costs, although that is now coming down again, as with all utilities. That would be a factor but there are several factors. There is work going on with the Irish Boat Rental Association and Fáilte Ireland in regard to the greening of the fleet, for example, and the promotion of the waterways.

Some of the stakeholders are people living on boats and they felt they were not consulted at all. Obviously, Waterways Ireland worked to terms of reference. Does it have a process for consultation with stakeholders? It is a valid complaint that they make. We got a lot of engagement at the time from people who felt Waterways Ireland was impenetrable.

We have undertaken over a year of public consultation on the proposed by-laws, including the fees charged, with 178 days of open consultation across that year. We had ten public information events across the country and 27 individual stakeholder meetings. Our public consultation has been robust, deep and wide.

I will revert to the issue of expenditure and income. The spend in 2022 was €61 million, having risen from €50 million in 2021, and income was €1.35 million for that year. To be realistic, it is not a body that is going to bring in a large amount of income because of the nature of what it is looking after, which is canals and other waterways. The information on people using boats and mooring fees for residential and non-residential use is all fairly clear to me but I have a question on unauthorised developments.

Is any income received from developments such as moorings, jetties or other hard structures put there by businesses operating along the Shannon and the lakes on the Shannon?

Okay. There are a number of local authorities involved, including one in my constituency, namely, Offaly County Council, at least until this mandate runs out. How much work has Waterways Ireland done with local authorities on these unauthorised hard structures and developments, 70 of which are on a large scale?

Let me try to respond. I take the point but it is not as simplistic as that. To contextualise this, there were 300 or so in place before we were even formed. Many are over 25 or 30 years old. When the body was formed, the first ten or 11 years focused as priority on getting up and running to manage the waterways.

When Waterways Ireland decided to work to reopen the Royal Canal and bring it to the shape it is in, it started to look at registration of its property. That initiative was put in place and ran until 2018 or 2019. That was the priority. As part of that, we started to make inroads into registration of the property. The body, when it was formed, was an amalgam of a range of agencies. Title, property deeds and all of that documentation was spread over many agencies.

I know all of that and am very aware of the date it was set up under the Good Friday Agreement. Where I am coming from, I would hope there would be more North-South bodies. I know there are many legalities around changing ownership and title deeds under the umbrella of Waterways Ireland. That said, 27 years later, here we are and Mr. McDonagh is telling me there are 70 unauthorised developments. From the answers he has given me so far, shag all has been done about them.

On this particular aspect we have made a lot of progress because we can now identity how many are involved, where they are located and what categories and tiers they fit into. On the back of that, having resourced a team to take this forward, we are in to a position where we can start to work on either the smaller encroachments, where within seven years we have an option to regularise things, or the larger encroachments, where there may be an opportunity for feeing them.

Okay. The large-scale ones are what I and many communities along the Shannon are concerned about. We have not got off the blocks with it yet. Waterways Ireland is researching it. There is more urgency about it than that. Has Waterways Ireland contacted or liaised with any local authority along the Shannon on unauthorised developments? I see unauthorised developments coming before planning departments of county councils for minor matters. There have been a number of complaints about these. Witnesses spoke about putting up fencing to protect their amenity. The River Shannon is their amenity on behalf of the public we represent. Why has the same urgency not been given to large-scale operations without licence, permit, fees or planning permission? Zero. Nothing. It is a remarkable situation. Most of them have not been there since before 1963, when planning permission was not required or was handled by a different body. Waterways Ireland has been in situ for over a quarter of a century and we are hearing this morning this issue has not been dealt with. How many local authorities has Waterways Ireland been in contact with?

Because we have started the process, as Mr. McDonagh has explained, in relation to the identification of the actual encroachments on the Shannon. We have looked at them across three tiers: those encroachments that are over 30 years, those encroachments between 30 and seven years, and those encroachments between seven and zero years. We have had no new encroachments in the past three years on the Shannon Navigation. We have resourced a unit internally and the process of regularising the encroachments on the Shannon will take a considerable amount of time.

If I may take that, we have been in discussions around the potential of the major encroachments, as was said. We have also worked with other bodies that have come across this, and what we have found is that the income will be offset by the cost of regularising and maintaining these encroachments, so there really is a nil effect overall.

From a legal perspective, when we go into some of these agreements, some of them are large scale so the onus would be that the documents would be public. Other agreements with the smaller ones would be private. We have standard contracts and there is specificity around location, size and different things, but none of them are non-disclosure agreements. We do not enter confidentiality agreements.

While no net income would be coming in or it might be offset, Waterways Ireland has an obligation to the people it is charging regarding the encroachment because they may have a competitor operating at a lower cost base because of Waterways Ireland's inaction. It cannot only be based on the income because obviously that would have a net impact on the renegotiation of any future agreements.

There are 70 large-scale developments along the Shannon and, apart from that, there is that point raised by Deputy McAuliffe. It is a very unequal situation if there are legitimate operators along the Shannon who are within the system and doing everything right and there are operations on the Shannon that are not and can operate without being accountable for anything. This is on Waterways Ireland's amenity. This is like allowing somebody into your field to do the house while you are on holidays and, when you come back, there is a house built and they say, "Sorry, we are just here. We are here anyway and we will work out the planning permission and a ground rent for it afterwards", or a lease agreement for the plot of land or something like that.

I understand it is inherited situations and developments. I understand the difficulty of it and that there is a big network of waterways. I do not want to describe the Shannon as being the most important one. I would count the Ulster Canal as very important and I would obviously count the Grand Canal, because it flows through County Laois, as being very important, but this is a huge waterway. It has huge tourism potential and the number of boats on it and usage of it has reduced in recent years for various reasons, but to allow a situation to develop where this kind of operation happens without there being any agreement or even one page of a memorandum of understanding, a lease, a permit or a licence is unbelievable. I would say from a public accounts point of view that this needs to stop. I will certainly make the recommendation, with the committee's agreement, I hope, that this matter be dealt with as quickly as possible. Does Ms Megahey want to add anything else?

We recognise the Deputy's statement but to give an update on our strategy, the major encroachments are primarily being looked at currently. We have resolved 18 recently, 37 are in progress and 55 are open. There are 110 encroachments we are actively working on at the moment out of those and major ones are the majority of that.

If I could make one final point on it, please. In the past seven years, there are only three unresolved encroachments. We have been dealing with them as they arise in the past seven years. To a large extent, what we are trying to do here is deal with a legacy issue that goes back many years. I take the point.

It is unusual for us to get requests for people to come into the Public Gallery for the public accounts committee. There were quite a lot of people looking to come in today. It suggests there is less access in respect of a collaborative approach for people who live or have businesses on the canals. That speaks to a governance issue here. I just wanted to make that point.

Regarding responsibility, who owns the Grand Canal Dock itself and the Liffey catchment? Who has responsibility for it and what is the relationship between, for example, the ESB and Waterways Ireland in that location?

To try to be specific, our responsibilities in what I would call greater Dublin are the Grand Canal and the Royal Canal. In the Grand Canal basin, we have what I call the inner basin, which is a section where we have a houseboat community. We also have the outer basin, which if you can imagine standing in front of the Bord Gáis Energy Theatre and looking straight in front of you, that watercourse is an asset of Waterways Ireland.

For the financial context of the charges, did Waterways Ireland look at, for example, pleasure boats? Did it look at the different needs and whether people require the multiplicity of services that are built into that package? What was the financial context? Was it required to keep Waterways Ireland with an income? What is the rationale?

We looked at the whole ambit of other provisions, including what is provided in private harbours and marinas and indeed other rental sectors. That was the basis on which the proposed charging under the KPMG report was undertaken. As Mr. McDonagh has already outlined, we have been through a series of different iterations on the charging. We did not fully accept the findings of KPMG. We also took on board a report undertaken by the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland, IWAI, the largest stakeholder of boats in the country-----

Was that consultation in the form of "this is what we are proposing" or was it open? Very often, I have seen consultations where there is a list of them and it looks like there are many consultations, but meaningful consultation means that what is being heard is then embedded into the next version of the by-laws, for example.

Part of the problem is that the by-laws are over 30 years old. They are out of date. If we were to take one simple number, such as the permit fee, it is at present €127, which at the time would have been £100. That is how long ago we are talking about. If that were inflated, it would probably be approximately €300 now. The impact is that with no by-laws in place and, let us say, no revisions every five years, with five times no revisions, suddenly we are trying to go from a position of 30 years-plus to now. That in itself, is a big step change for everybody and I accept that.

It strikes me that if there are people living and using the canals as navigation, that will increase the movements and the viability of the canal. It seems, however, that there is almost an intention to cap numbers using the canals. Does Waterways Ireland have a proposal for that? Does it have the numbers?

I will come back to one of those points in a few minutes. In a situation where there is a dispute and somebody does not pay the fees, the boats are towed to Shannon Harbour or some other location. They are then sold with a closed envelope approach. What is the income from that and is there transparency around it?

It would probably have more value to the individuals themselves. There has been some very good work done on the greenways for both the Royal and Grand Canals, both of which come through my constituency. I would be well aware of that. From Cope Bridge into the city, what is the plan for that and what is the impediment to that being progressed?

The overall vision is that the Grand Canal greenway and the Royal Canal greenway will obviously traverse the metro park greater Dublin, and meet at Grand Canal basin. The Royal Canal will come in as far as Spencer Dock, and the Grand Canal will come in as far as Grand Canal basin. Over time, within the greater Dublin area, there will also be a looped greenway which will take in Phoenix Park.

The only impediment that I am aware of would by the topography of the deep-sinking area. Other than that, there are no impediments. We are working with stakeholders, various councils, local authorities, the NTA and TII to make that happen. We expect, notwithstanding the topography issue, that those metro greenways will be developed by 2025 or 2026.

While I would only observe from a distance, I always understood that when people wanted to go up and down the canals, they would manage the locks themselves.

Why do they have to make an appointment, for example, to go in and out of the city?

Again, we manage navigation right across the canals and we have a series of patrollers who assist boaters with their movements through the locks. On average, a patroller will have five locks in a stretch through which they would help boats. When it comes to the city environment we have a lot of technical issues relating to how navigation is managed through the city. In fact, the navigation is managed very carefully through the city. Some of those issues are technical and to do with the design of the lock gates and the lock structures themselves. Some, unfortunately, are associated with antisocial behaviour that the boaters meet on their routes. Finally, it is around having people navigate through the city and across, for example, the Liffey. The Liffey is not in our jurisdiction but if people wanted to go from the Grand Canal onto the Royal Canal, there is a very short window and we need to manage that very carefully, particularly coming into Spencer Dock, which is a sea lock.

We have put the lockhouses to various uses. Some of them are for welfare facilities for our staff. Others we have rented to various organisations, particularly community organisations, which may be providing recreational offerings on the navigations. For example, there are kayak and bicycle hire operators operating from the lockhouse in Cloondara in County Longford.

I am trying to visualise this. You want the viability in the mix of commercial traffic, offerings for tourism and all of that. Will the witnesses go back over one point? I asked a question earlier about the viability and the costs, including input costs. When it came to the cost of living, there were grants due to the cost of energy, for example. It would not have been specific to this particular area because you had to have a shop front and some of the supports were only available to a specific category of people. Is Waterways Ireland engaging with the commercial side in terms of the financial viability? It is obviously terrific that there is development going on right across the waterways. The greenways are kind of separate from that, but they an important part of it at the same time. The loss of cruiser traffic, for example, would have an impact on other facilities, such as restaurants, cafés, hire and a whole lot of different things. Has there been a serious look at the costs and the viability and addressing that reduction in use? The greenway people will lose some of these offerings as well.

If we look at the tourism offering that is based on our navigations, the Shannon, the Shannon-Erne and the Erne are the three most important navigations. On the Shannon-Erne and the Shannon, Waterways Ireland along with Fáilte Ireland led the charge on the creation of Ireland's Hidden Heartlands, which is the fourth tourism destination on the island. Under Ireland's Hidden Heartlands we have a steering committee which comprises not only the local authorities, ourselves, Fáilte Ireland and some other State agencies but, crucially, the industry. From that Ireland's Hidden Heartlands steering group and strategy, we created the Shannon tourism master plan. This was the first ever holistic plan on this island to cover the entire Shannon and Shannon-Erne, which is hard to believe. As part of that Shannon tourism master plan there is a huge number of interventions that go into not only the bricks and mortar, as I would call them, around capital development, but, crucially, into industry supports. In answer to the question around those supports, they were led out by Fáilte Ireland in particular and by the local authority sector with things like rate reductions, supports for the development of social media presences, websites and all of that. These were led by Fáilte Ireland but under the Shannon tourism master plan.

We have looked at other jurisdictions. When we look at the boat traffic on the Shannon, it has remained static for approximately the past ten years. In fact, May and June this year are probably 3% up on those months last year. The market trends have changed dramatically. The user patterns have changed. Many people are taking short breaks rather than the two-week cruise hire break. The cruise hire industry itself has restructured. The number of boats that are registered on the Shannon has increased over the past 20 years from 6,000 boats to over 9,000 boats but the user patterns are different. Those private boats do not necessarily use our locks. If I have a boat in Killaloe which I use at weekends, I will stick to Lough Derg and I will not be using a lock. When we look at lock passage figures, they have certainly reduced.

The other thing I would say is that since Waterways Ireland was established, it has doubled the mooring capacity on the Shannon. There is still pressure on these moorings in certain locations on the Shannon. We have opened up new destinations for cruisers such as Lough Key Forest and Activity Park, with a 54-berth marina; Carrick-on-Shannon, with a 28-berth marina; Portumna Castle Harbour; and Connaught Harbour, with an additional 30 moorings, and they are all busy and all used. The issue really relates to the market trends having completely and fundamentally changed.

The final thing I will say is that the German-speaking market, Germany and Austria in particular, are crucial to the cruise hire sector. That market has not been performing well in the past two years. There are question marks over the economy in Germany which have meant people are not travelling. However, Tourism Ireland, in conjunction with Fáilte Ireland and ourselves, has undertaken marketing campaigns targeting that cruise hire sector and indeed we hope to see it grow again in the coming years.

Turning back to the issue of unauthorised developments on the Shannon, will the agency supply the committee with a note regarding the size and type? I do not expect to see the exact size of all of them, but I would like to see the types of developments we are talking about. The witnesses might describe what they consider to be a large-scale development, for the benefit of the public and us as laypeople.

I do not want the exact size of every one of them. I am just trying to be practical about it. It is just for our information. When local authorities serve unauthorised development notices on them, that is a really serious matter. I have dealt with a few of them over the years where there may have been a complaint from a neighbour and it might be something very small. It might be a vacant house and work might have been carried out by somebody who is now deceased, for example, and people might feel as though their backs are to the wall. How many unauthorised development notices have been served by the local authorities? I am mindful that this is not Mr. Rowe's baby. It is for the local authorities and I am not trying to nail him down on this. Even so, there are ten county councils along the Shannon and, obviously, he is in contact with them. Does he have any idea of how many of these notices have been served in respect of the Shannon waterway?

Our primary concern is the health and safety of those individuals because, as we outlined in the photograph we circulated to the committee, the tents were in such a dangerous position, adjacent to a deep water lock. Paramount to us in Waterways Ireland were the health and safety considerations associated with the tented encampments on the banks of our canals.

It is a bit like proposing to fence the Curragh. How far can we go down the canal with fencing? There is the weekly cost of it, apart from the obstruction and everything else.

The Ulster Canal is an important project. In July 2022, there was a €20 million contract for phase 2. How much has been spent on it to date?

In regard to the contribution of funding from the North and the South, what kinds of discussions are happening about that? Will this State carry the whole cost? I am not going to get into it because I am anti-partition, but the benefits of this will be North and South. Everybody will benefit from this when it is done. What kinds of discussions, if any, are happening about the shared cost?

The Minister for Infrastructure in Northern Ireland, John O'Dowd, is deeply engaged in that question and understands that, as a cross-Border project, it would be important for the Northern Ireland Executive to look to contribute to the project at a point in time. As I understand it, he will engage with other Ministers in the Executive to have that conversation.

I know that Mr. McDonagh cannot do so, but I can. It will affect whether there will be a bit more cash knocking around because there is a very difficult budgetary situation and, unfortunately, the Assembly and the Executive do not have the same powers as the Dáil to raise money.

Is there a timeline for the delivery of that project? I would like to use it. I have never been on a barge. One of my ambitions in life is to spend a few days on one. What is the timeline for the delivery of that project?

There are four subphases to the third phase. It is important that I point that out. They cross between the North and the South. There is planning in place in Northern Ireland for three of the subphases. The planning in Ireland for one of the subphases is now expired and we will be going for planning for that subphase later this year. Three of the subphases have planning, all in Northern Ireland.

The piece in the middle is phase 3. On the other end of the string - I am using very simple language - there is the 1 km that goes from Clonfad into Clones Marina. You can traverse and navigate up to Castle Saunderson. There is then the gap of 10 km, and then there is the 1 km that goes into Clones. It is important that I paint that picture rather than have people think they can navigate across them all, because that is not the situation now.

First, the graving docks are protected structures. That is the first thing. We are not selling it at this point in time. We are and have been in discussions with another party that has a leasehold interest on the property. We hope to bring that conversation to a point where there is a transaction in place. We will then look to have 100% ownership, freehold and leasehold interest, of the property. However, that transaction has not been completed.

I refer to the by-laws process. A lot hangs on this by-laws process. That is probably the more important piece rather than the mooring charges, even though it is a fairly substantial increase. The by-laws are more important and probably a trickier piece of work. I will ask the same question. When do we think that process will lay an egg?

We have concluded phase 2 of the public consultation. We have just drafted our consultation report and will publish it shortly. We have had discussions with the sponsor Department on the nature of the by-laws. We have been asked by the Department to also consider the fee structure as proposed in the by-laws. We hope to conclude the process before the summer is out.

It is great that it is close to being finalised because it is so important for whatever the future holds for the canals to have that tidied up.

Speaking of tidying up, I refer to spending on the cleaning of the Dublin canals, the Grand Canal Basin in particular. The Grand Canal Basin should be fantastic. It is quite beautiful. The plaza is gorgeous and all the rest of it. If the water quality were right, it would be a little paradise within the centre of the city. What kind of spending is Waterways Ireland doing there, even around litter removal? I refer to the famous shopping trolleys that are found at the end of these things. I do not know what people are thinking when they think putting a shopping trolley into a waterway is good fun but apparently many people seem to think it is. What is our ambition there? Where should we be aiming, particularly with Grand Canal Basin but also those parts of the canal within the city centre?

I will make three comments on the Deputy's question. We accept that we need to have more resources in Dublin in respect of the work that needs to be done to bring the standard of the canals and assets to a standard more comparable to other international cities. That is accepted. We need to resource up for that. Regarding the outer basin at the Grand Canal Dock, there is a water quality issue. There are no immersive activities there, or there should not be, because of the water quality issue. The water quality issue is being dealt with in conjunction with Uisce Éireann and Dublin City Council. There is a project that now has planning that will deal with that water quality issue in the next couple of years.

To deal with the ambition, in the short term we are in the process of restoring the sea lock gates at one end next to the property the Deputy was talking about. That will enable things like tall ships to come into that area, which will enhance tourism. The project with Uisce Éireann and Dublin City Council will help to enable people to have immersive activities in the water, which will address part of the Deputy's question.

The broader ambition for Dublin is a totally different piece. We are looking five, ten and 15 years down the track. We will work in collaboration with Fáilte Ireland. We will develop a Dublin master plan. That has been agreed with Fáilte Ireland. It will take some time. It will address the assets we have in greater Dublin, which include the canals, the docklands and the property the Deputy referred to.

I hope that whatever the next Government looks like, Waterways Ireland gets the support for that. It should be fantastic. I lived in Ringsend for a number of years and used to come across those locks. It should be fantastic.

On tourism, did Waterways Ireland make a submission to the Department of tourism's consultation on sustainable tourism? It was relatively recent - only the last couple months.

To add to that, through the structures I outlined earlier around the Hidden Heartlands and Ireland's Ancient East, we feed directly into Fáilte Ireland's work and its strategic development work around tourism. Sustainability is at the heart of the Shannon tourism master plan. We follow the international best practice VICE model, which the Deputy is well aware of, where the visitor, industry, community and environment are placed centrally. Everything we want to achieve for the Shannon and the rest of our waterways is based on sustainability.

It would have been a good opportunity to have made a submission to that consultation because I do not think Waterways Ireland would have had to recreate the wheel because it has much of the work done. I think it would have made for a powerful submission.

I ask about the Barrow tourism master plan and particularly a part of the world I am extremely fond of, which is Graiguenamanagh to St. Mullin's. The witnesses will know well what is coming, that is, the debate around whether we remain with the towpath or whether we will put in hard surfacing. It is a real balancing act between accessibility to amenity, retaining the heritage of the amenity and the biodiversity impact any kind of hard surfacing would have.

Where are we with that? I am one of the people who was in favour of retaining the towpath. In the Waterford Greenway we have seen the outstanding offering we can get with that kind of properly surfaced trail. There is something very special about the bit from Graiguenamanagh to St. Mullin's. What is Waterways Ireland's thinking in that regard?

Where we are in the bigger picture is that we decided there are three things that need to get done. The first is we had to have a five-year maintenance plan. We submitted plans to the three local authorities some time back. The issue here is the fact that it is in an SAC, as Deputy Ó Cathasaigh probably knows, and as a result of that we are not able to do the kind of basic maintenance we can do elsewhere. That causes issues in its own right. We are talking about grass cutting, bank maintenance and canal maintenance. That is the first thing we have done. We have been asked for further information from the three local authorities. We are in the process of pulling all of that together, but we probably will not have the information until the end of the year because of the detail and level of information that has been sought.

The second thing is that, as part of our asset management strategy, we have identified the need for critical infrastructure investment of about €10 million over the next five or seven years. That is mainly relating to weirs. There are 28 weirs on the River Barrow.

The third part is the master plan the Deputy talks about, which we are doing in conjunction with the three local authorities plus Kilkenny. That, as I understand, has kicked off and there have been initial meetings on that.

As part of the master plan we want to put in place, we will consider all of the tourism opportunities connected to the Barrow navigation and the wider corridor.

On the specific question about the surface of the towpath, as the Deputy is probably aware, much of the towpath to St. Mullin's floods because it is in the floodplain and there is a requirement to come up with an alternative solution to how the towpath can be used and whether it-----

It will take a number of years to develop. There is no doubt about that. We must get through the design and planning phase first, which will probably take a full year, considering the design and the environmental implications. Again, we are in an SAC so the bar is higher. I hope we will get through that process fairly smoothly and then we can begin to go through the phased development of it. A lot of the assets from Limerick to O'Brien's Bridge in particular are already in our ownership. We will look at the phased introduction of that greenway.

I have a number of questions. The witnesses from Waterways Ireland stated that May 2023 was the last time they put a stop to spending in areas that are subject to unauthorised development. What kind of money had been spent? Was it frequent expenditure or a one-off? Could they give some sort of indication about it?

I thank Mr. Rowe.

I am intrigued by the slips and falls. We frequently have the State Claims Agency before the committee. The amount of money talked about in this case is astronomical in comparison with what we talk about in terms of other organisations. There is something involved here that is more than trips and falls. Will Mr. McDonagh tell us what it is?

Okay. It is good to hear that it is an unusual case. It came to light when a diligent passer-by noticed it.

How do on-the-spot fines work? The whole idea is that we would not end up having to have fines, which are more or less to stop behaviour. Will the witnesses give an indication of how they are applied and what kind of income is realised?

Deputy Murphy can gather her thoughts. I wish to ask about the Grand Canal. Mr. McDonagh is going to give us a note on the breakdown of the €125,000.

The proposed Shannon pipeline is back in the news again, so to speak. There are arguments for and against it, but I will not get into them here as that is for another forum. An issue was raised by some boat owners and operators in the lower Shannon area about the effect of such a volume of water being taken out of the Shannon. I was surprised by this argument because since the foundation of the State every government has promised to deal with the flooding of the Shannon. In my time in the House, constituents in west Offaly, not just in winter time but on a number of occasions, were in contact with me about their farms and homes being flooded. Would a pipeline lower the levels to the point that cruisers would hit the bottom?

Has Waterways Ireland raised any concerns about that?

We had a series of consultations with Uisce Éireann on the water abstraction. For the record, the abstraction will be 4 m3 per second. At the moment 10 m3 per second are sent by the ESB down the old course of the Shannon every day. When Ardnacrusha is in operation one turbine takes 100 m3 per second.

Two summers ago, if we can remember back that far, we had a beautiful summer and we had low water levels on the Shannon. Unfortunately, we do not have that issue at the moment this year and we certainly did not have it last year. We monitor the levels on the Shannon with our colleagues in the ESB. We issue marine notices advising our customer base and those masters of craft of either high or low water levels. We have never had low water levels on Lough Derg.

I will explain why I am asking the question. This proposal is out there again and I am trying to inform myself about this. People are arguing on both sides of this and I wanted to get Waterways Ireland’s view, as the body which owns and manages the waterway. I would have expected that it would have done some work on it with Uisce Éireann.

I welcome that. I wanted to get Waterways Ireland’s take on it so I thank Mr. Rowe.

I have a question on Vicarstown. Mr. Rowe will know what I am talking about.

It is a lovely village. There were two pubs in it. The pubs are gone. The school is gone. There is nothing. Mr. Rowe will have been down there a number of times, I would say. There are a lot of people living down there with his second name. The whole locality is fantastic. I have not been out there often enough but hopefully we will get to go out there again. What plans are there for the waterway there? Does Waterways Ireland have any plans to develop a facility? There is a partial operation of a café which is great. I think it is starting to open up again and it was certainly open last year but it would be great if the village could be brought back to life and the facilities used better. Are there plans for any physical developments at Vicarstown?

Any plans we would have would take the navigation of the entire Barrow line into consideration. That is our intention under the proposed masterplan for the Barrow. Vicarstown is a gem. There is no doubt about it. It has supported that café but also a very small barge operator and it continues to support that barge operation. From our perspective, it is one of those destinations we would like to see developed along the Barrow line and the Barrow navigation.

It just strikes me that the midlands in general does not do well with tourism or funding for tourism. I do not want to be too parochial about it but County Laois certainly does not do well. There is a number of visitor attractions in the county but it is also for us natives. Vicarstown has much more potential to generate employment and money locally and improving Waterway Ireland’s asset there would be a win-win situation but it needs something to kick start it and that has not been forthcoming. The answer Mr. Rowe gave was to incorporate the Barrow line, from Monasterevin to Athy. Are there plans for the village itself in terms of the facility there? There are some people in residence there. Are there plans to put in any facilities there to assist that, for instance?

I can say the Barrow blueway is almost complete - we have a couple of road crossings to complete this year with the local authorities - and that could be a game-changer for Vicarstown. We would hope then that we would be developing destinations along the navigation, not only along the Barrow but also along the Grand Canal from Shannon Harbour and to try to attract some of those 9,000 boats that we have on the Shannon to visit the wonderful canals too.

We have an investment programme for onshore services, particularly across pump-outs, as the Chair mentioned. It is based on demand and, without getting too technical, days cruising between sites, etc. We also have offerings in other locations but we will take on board the Chair’s suggestion and I will revert to him directly.

On the maintenance of the waterway itself, some years ago there was a problem with water levels. I was in contact with one of Waterways Ireland’s regional staff who was helpful and they solved it. There was water running off and the levels were dropping below that required in the summer to navigate it. That was done and I wanted to acknowledge that. When Monasterevin was in the constituency that I am in, there was a problem with a roadway there. I was in contact with one of Waterways Ireland’s staff. It was a short roadway leading into a dwelling along the bank of the canal. The staff member helpfully resolved that issue. However, an issue that keeps arising is that of weeds on that stretch of the canal between Monasterevin, the part that runs through Laois, across north Laois and down to Athy. What maintenance plan is there? Occasionally one would see a machine parked up there. It is the boat with the harvester on it. Is there an annual maintenance plan or anything Waterways Ireland can do to improve that? People are saying to me that they cannot navigate it because the weeds are catching in the propellers.

We have 24 weed harvesters across the canals. They are fully deployed from when the weeds begin to grow until the end of the weed season. Then we cut a channel down the middle of the navigations. But yes, we can improve on our service level there, there is no doubt. It is dependent on a number of factors including sunshine, heat and water levels. This year the weed growth has not been as bad as other years. We are constantly reviewing our interventions in relation to weed harvesting along the canals.

Okay. I would ask that Mr. Rowe would look at that area with the local staff because it is a complaint that is brought up with me regularly. It is important. The middle stretch is sufficient. I can see the logic in it and you do not want to butcher everything either because obviously there are biodiversity issues but that is more than sufficient if that is done. I want to acknowledge that but there has to be a continuation of that where an issue arises. I think it is only twice in the last 14 years that I have had to contact some of Waterways Ireland staff and I got the issue resolved reasonably quickly. The leak in the weir took a few goes but it did get done and I want to acknowledge that.

Deputy Murphy wished to come in.

My next point is on weed control. If you routinely go along the canals, you rarely see boats moving, but I presume a boat moving is a means of controlling weeds. The absence of movement creates the environment in which weeds grow. Does Waterways Ireland have a proposal on how to have greater movement, not just for weed control but also for other purposes? Boats are very static. In this regard, consider the point I made on Dublin and getting in and out. Reference was made to antisocial behaviour at locks. Sometimes, movement brings passive security. Is that an aspect to consider?

I will take that. We have 650 registered boats on the canals, and the vast majority are static, as the Deputy said. The movement of boats occurs through organised rallies, particularly those of the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland and the Royal Canal Amenity Group. At these, perhaps 15 to 30 boats travel at a time. Bed manipulation, as we call it, or bed movement would certainly help to reduce weed growth, although it does not eradicate it. In the next couple of years, we will be trying to create destinations along canals where visiting boats can stay. There are two elements to creating those destinations. One involves by-laws and enforcement, such that people may stay for only five days at one location, as is the case on the Shannon, and the second involves the investment that follows so we can attract people to places like Vicarstown, Tullamore or Mullingar in order to have boat movement.

As I said, there are 650 registered boats on the canals, and we have 9,000 boats on the Shannon. We want to attract some of the boats from the Shannon to the canals. It is a wonderful experience. The canals are unique and sensitive ecologically but they give a different perspective on the island.

Obviously, the history in my constituency is quite important. The Grand Canal’s construction was a dream by comparison with that of the Royal Canal, where factors such as the rock type bankrupted the company. There is a terrific history and it started out exclusively as a commercial history. Are we underperforming in terms of people’s understanding of where the canals came from and the various changes that happened along the way? Is that part of the story that will be part of the tourism package? There are now many opportunities, including through QR codes, and there are no longer certain requirements. You can change things. Is this the kind of thing Waterways Ireland is thinking of? How does it fit in?

The Deputy has hit the nail on the head. The three navigations in the eastern region – the Royal Canal, the Grand Canal and the Barrow – are unique and very different. We have done a lot of work to identify what makes them unique. We have just received approval from the just transition fund for an activation, animation and interpretation programme for the Royal Canal and the Royal Canal Greenway. It will speak very clearly to the heritage of the Royal Canal Greenway and particularly its use as the National Famine Way, which brought people from the west of Ireland down the canals to take the ships from Dublin Port to Liverpool and then to the New World, as it was known at the time. It will speak very strongly to that. The Grand Canal programme will speak very strongly to its industrial heritage and, indeed, the story of barley being shipped one way and Guinness being shipped the opposite way. It is very connected to the industrial heritage. The animation and activation programme for the Barrow that will follow the Barrow Blueway development and navigation itself will be based on houses, castles and gardens. Again, there is a very strong offering in that locality, particularly in the form of great houses. We are doing this work with our colleagues in Fáilte Ireland and all the local authorities in the relevant area.

We have covered a lot of ground. The witnesses have some information to revert to us with, including on the questions on the Shannon and the Vicarstown situation. I thank the witnesses from Waterways Ireland and the Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage for their work preparing for today’s meeting. I thank the Comptroller and Auditor General and his staff for assisting the committee today.

Is it agreed that the clerk may seek any follow-up information required and carry out any agreed actions arising from the meeting? Agreed. Is it agreed that we note and publish the opening statements provided for today’s meeting? Agreed.