Confusion regarding Shannon pipeline

Considerable confusion among farmers in North Tipperary in relation to payments being offered and the impact to their enterprises if they allow the proposed Shannon-Dublin water pipeline to cross their lands resulted in a large attendance at a meeting on the issue in Nenagh on Monday night last.

The briefing meeting was organised by the Irish Creamery Milk Suppliers Association (ICMSA), whose Templemore based Deputy National President, Eamon Carroll, said impacted farmers harboured genuine  fears and deep concern over how any pipe laying would impact on their individual livelihoods.

The concerns have been highlighted as Uisce Éireann prepares to seek planning permission for the controversial project to pipe water from the River Shannon at the Parteen Basin, near Birdhill, to the capital city in a scheme projected to cost up to €10 billion.

The ICMSA estimates that there are around 100 farmers in North Tipperary and 190 in the adjoining county of Offaly on the route of the proposed pipeline.

“There’s huge interest among farmers as we know from a previous meeting on the subject where we had a very large attendance,” said Mr Carroll.

Mr Carroll, a dairy farmer from Templemore, said the amount of farmers who came to the ICMSA stand at the recent National Ploughing Championships looking for details on the issue was incredible.

“They want proper guidance because they are absolutely bamboozled by the level of paperwork they have been issued,” said Mr Carroll.

“Most farmers just want a bottom line summary on the implications of them in accepting the deal, but Uisce Éireann, in fairness, have to issue a lot of paperwork to comply with legislation. It’s a minefield.”

The ICMSA and another farming organisation, the IFA, have already hammered out a deal for farmers impacted by pipe laying after exhaustive and extensive negotiations with the Uisce Éireann.

While farmers do not have to accept the deal and can negotiate individually with the company, Mr Carroll said the ICMSA had received very positive feedback on the package that the two associations have negotiated for well over a year.

Mr Carroll, who was a member of the ICMSA’s negotiating team, said farmer representatives took a very tough stance with Uisce Éireann.

“There was maybe three or four times where we actually got up from the negotiating table and left and were then called back into the room. I remember one of those meetings were we started at 1.30pm and didn’t leave the hotel until 2am the following morning.”

Mr Carroll disputed media reports that individual impacted farmers would receive sums averaging €100,000. “It’s less than that if you are talking about average. That’s very much an inflated figure,”  he said, pointing out issues such as VAT and Capital Gains implications.

“There’s huge implications in all of these areas that we are trying as an association to iron out.”

GOOD DEAL

Mr Carroll added: “The feedback in relation to the deal we have negotiated is one of mixed emotions. Nobody at any point has said to me that the deal is a bad deal. The deal is a good deal,” said Mr Carroll.

However, he said the level of disruption on day-to-day enterprises on farms would impact to varying degrees. Many farming enterprises would be badly impacted while others would be less severely affected.

Should the project proceed, Mr Carroll said farmers will have a corridor of 50 metres in land width taken along the route of the pipe while the infrastructure is being put in the ground.

The 50 metres “sterile strip”, as Mr Carroll called it, will be in existence for two years before subsequently being reduced to a width of 20 metres, but normal farming can then resume over the strip.

“But there is huge implications in regard to what is proposed when it comes to issues of Single Farm Payments and it will have implications for nitrate use,” said Mr Carroll who revealed that the ICMSA was still seeking clarity from the Department of Agriculture in relation to such issues.

Mr Carroll said: “This is going to have implications for individual farm payments - there’s no doubt about that. We have an agreement with Uisce Éireann that we will work with them through the lifetime of this project and sit down with them on a number of times each year to iron out any problems that arise,” he said.

The Chairperson of Tipperary ICMSA, Michael O’Connell, said the association acted to hold the meeting in Nenagh in response to large numbers of enquiries on the details of the package and the options available to affected landowners.

The chief speaker at the meeting was Paul Smyth, the Executive Secretary to the ICMSA Farm & Rural Affairs Committee, and a key member of the negotiating team involved in the project for several years.

Mr Smyth, who is from a farm family in Moneygall, presented details on the finer details of the pipe project.