Tipperary’s Lough Derg shore line.
Residents in Dublin city can expect to get their fresh water supplies direct from the River Shannon in Co Tipperary, when they turn on their taps no later than 2022. Well that will be the case if our present so-called Fine Gael / Labour government gets its way.
It is understood that a plan to extract Shannon water from the Lough Derg and Parteen Basin and to store same in a reservoir at a Bord na Móna interim storage facility, formerly a major sod peat production facility, situated at Garryhinch, Co Laois, is in the pipeline.
This proposed project, plans of which are expected to be announced shortly, will swallow the biggest part of Irish Water’s infrastructure planned finance, which will now be paid for by a tax on ‘God given water,’ latter to be imposed nationally, beginning in 2015.
Irish Water has already received or borrowed €240 million from the proceeds of the 2014 Property Tax, €490 million from the 2014 Local Government Fund, €250 million from the National Pensions Reserve Fund 2013, €190 million from local businesses and soon will be handed €500 million from ordinary over burdened householders / taxpayers, through a tax on water from 2015.
This proposed interim storage facility in Laois will also be marketed to double up as a high quality outdoor recreation and educational facility and Bord na Móna is actively engaging with Dublin City Council on both the planning and delivery of this new intended water source.
Without this new planned 6 to 8 year project coming into fruition, which will cost well over €600m, Dublin will have no further capacity for the development of housing and business. The current water supply in the greater Dublin Region is described as using between 96% – 99% of its daily current capacity, with 40% of this capacity leaking daily from unrepairable faulty mains infrastructure.
The planning stage for this intended development is expected to take some three years from current date to 2016, but same plans can expect to be vigorously opposed.
People residing along the river Shannon basin and indeed the broader hinterland of the Irish Midlands, under this present Fine Gael / Labour government, see daily their heavy burden of taxes as being extracted solely for the benefit and upgrading of Dublin city residents and associated business. Dublin city is observed also as the sole beneficiary of almost all newly created employment, while rural economies like Tipperary are being completely ignored, but nevertheless still required to pay exorbitant taxes without any consideration as to people’s ability to pay, even remotely being taken into consideration.
They have stolen our historic treasures, (Derrynaflan Chalice) now they are taking our water. What next?.