A BOG on the Laois-Offaly border is “an ideal location” for a proposed eco-park and reservoir, a member of the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment said yesterday.
Labour TD Kevin Humphreys was speaking after visiting the proposed site of the €560 million project with other committee members.
The committee was briefed by Bord na Móna on plans to build a reservoir in Co Offaly to supply drinking water from Lough Derg, on the river Shannon, to Dublin.
Committee members asked questions about the viability and environmental sustainability of the project.
The TDs visited the site of the proposed water storage reservoir at Garryhinch on the Laois-Offaly border, and toured amenity lakes and parkland already developed by Bord na Móna at Lough Boora Parklands, Co Offaly. The delegation was led by committee chairman and Labour TD Ciaran Lynch, along with committee deputies James Bannon (Fine Gael), Marcella Corcoran Kennedy (Fine Gael), Kevin Humphreys (Labour) and Brian Stanley (Sinn Féin).
“I believe it is an ideal location for a reservoir to provide water to Dublin for the next 70 years. Bord na Móna clearly has a well-researched plan that should be brought into the planning process as soon as possible to address the lack of a strategic reserve of water for the Dublin region,” Mr Humphreys said.
The project is opposed by some members of the committee, including Fianna Fáil TD for Clare Timmy Dooley, who has described it as “daft and entirely uneconomical”.
