Madam, – As a TD, Mrs Mary O’Rourke spends four days in Dublin every week when the Dáil or its committees are sitting. I hope there will always be a sufficient water supply for her to bathe, run the washing machine and make the odd cup of tea, without having to “vandalise” the Shannon. “Where . . . and how it [the Shannon] flows is an act of nature”, Mrs O’Rourke asserts (Home News,September 10th).
I beg to differ. “How”, and to some extent “where”, result from centuries of projects to deepen the Shannon and divert its flow (as at Jamestown). The hydro-scheme at Ardnacrusha has been a particularly significant interference with nature that has raised water levels upstream and caused flooding to worsen. The timely removal of some of that surplus water would not be vandalism.
Local authorities in the Dublin region should do more to conserve and reuse water, but it is illogical to suggest they should start the energy-intensive desalination of seawater while so much sweet Shannon water is flowing wastefully into the Atlantic. Environmental and cost-benefit analyses might well justify pumping water from the Shannon to the capital. – Yours, etc,