River Shannon maintenance work set to be stepped up - ‘Boxer’

Machinery moved onto the River Shannon to clear fallen trees and foliage in order to speed up the flow of water at The Long Island, near Portumna, recently.

Speaking about the work, Minister for the OPW, Kevin 'Boxer' Moran said it was carried out over an area spanning some 540 metres, and that it succeeded in removing a thick body of material that had long been affecting the flow of the river downstream of Athlone.

"Going back to my previous spell (as Minister for the OPW) this was an area that farmers and anglers felt was blocked. The mainland and the island were almost meeting together. You could barely get a boat between them because of the way the trees had grown so tightly together," said 'Boxer'.

"People will say it's not enough, but every little bit that we do helps with the conveyance of the water."

The work at The Long Island followed on from an earlier project in September in which some 1,100 tonnes of silt between Banagher and Victoria Lock was removed from the Shannon.

'Boxer' said there is "a tight window" in which work of this nature can be carried out, but he's hopeful that three more areas can be tackled between now and Christmas.

"We do want to see more machinery on the Shannon," he said, adding that 22 areas had been identified for river clearance works, both upstream and downstream of Athlone, with 15 licences approved for this work to date.

"I want us to keep pushing on and keep applying for more licences to do this work in various locations along the river because, to be honest, I felt that in the five years I was out of the OPW (2020 to 2025) we didn't put the machines on the Shannon as much as we should have, so we need to continue that work."

He added that, early in 2027, he would be organising a visit to the ESB's hydroelectric power station in Ardnacrusha for local councillors, farming organisation representatives, and others in order to further discuss water levels on the Shannon.