A project to help people with disabilities is being undertaken by the Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary.
The sisters, who have their main base at Moore Abbey, Monasterevin, have just gone into the boating industry in a scheme they call Ar an Uisce.
They have commissioned a new barge, to be crewed by people with intellectual disability, which will provide a service to communities in the region.
The 55ft barge has been built in Newbridge, Co Kildare, by Morrell Power Craft and will be ready for use in about a fortnight and the project will get under way on the Barrow and Grand Canal systems.
The boat has a maximum beam of 12ft 4in, a maximum draft of 2ft 6in and displaces 33 tonnes. It will be the most modern barge on the Grand Canal.
According to Mr Joe Kelly, the chief executive of the order, the project will have a major impact on the midlands.
"It will enable people with learning disabilities to learn from and enjoy water-based activities and to actively participate with others in the wider community. The main aim and objective is to provide participants with new learning and recreational experiences, utilising the inland waterways, and to arrange overseas visits to similar projects," he said.
"We have already trained a number of people in the basic skills they will need for the trips we plan to take. That is being done by our `captain', Mark Maguire, a Dun Laoghaire man.
"He has already taught a number of our people basic skills such as small-boat handling, operating the local gates, barge maintenance and operations.
"We will also be teaching our clients basic angling, wildlife appreciation, and their lives and skills will be enhanced by all this," he said, adding that the training objective of the project, which has been approved by the Department of Enterprise and Employment, under the Horizon Strand of the Employment initiative, will also have job potential.
"By December next 18 people with intellectual disabilities will reach certification level in a wide range of boating skills, which will enable them to participate in supporting employment in specific areas of the tourism industry."
The trainees are drawn from a number of day-care centres operated by the sisters in the midlands.
Families with children with an intellectual disability will be able to have holidays aboard the craft, but the use of the vessel will not be confined to clients of the sisters.
"We envisage that the barge will also be used to take people from other institutions, including old people's homes from all over the midlands, on day trips. We see this as a community effort involving all the midlands counties and many other institutions. It is totally in line with the thinking of the sisters who run a number of missions in the region ".
He said the Ar an Uisce project would bring new life to the Grand Canal towns of Monasterevin, Vicarstown, Edenderry, Tullamore and Athlone, with the provision of a canal passenger service by people with disabilities.
"We also hope to explore all Ireland's inland waterways over the next two years and participate in rallies. We also hope soon to take the vessel up the Shannon-Erne canal and into the Barrow and Shannon systems," he said.
The Sisters of Charity of Jesus and Mary already run a chocolate factory in Athboy and a special "fragrance" garden in Abbeyleix, Co Laois.
"The sisters manufacture Belgian chocolates at the Athboy factory under the trade name Divine, and they use the Abbeyleix gardens to help people with disabilities understand a sense of smell and touch by using the plants and flowers grown there.
"I would like to get across the fact that the sisters are well tuned into what is happening in the world: they are modern and progressive thinkers," he added.
Only one issue in the project has yet to be resolved: the name of the new barge. The sisters have asked their clients to come up with a suitable name.
They have had a few suggestions, including some that it be called the Titanic, but there's been no great rush to act on them. The boat will be named when it is officially launched by the Tanaiste later in the year.
The total cost of the Ar an Uisce project is £400,000, 75 per cent of which will come from the European Social Fund and the European Regional Development Fund.
The remaining 25 per cent is being provided by the Sisters, the parents' and friends' support group and by project participants.