The ESB denied at a public meeting in Athlone yesterday that it was responsible for the flooding on the Shannon which has left some communities cut off and tens of thousands of acres of farmland under water.
The manager of the Ardnacrusha power station in Clare, Mr Bob Cullen, told a meeting of nearly 500 people organised by the Irish Farmers' Association that the company had not been conserving water over Christmas and the new year.
Mr Cullen said it had been suggested that the ESB had been storing water in the Shannon to generate power in the event of the Y2K bug hitting other generating plants.
He said nothing could be further from the truth because the company had generated electricity all through December, and the station had more than sufficient water.
There were cries of "Rubbish" from the audience when he said that the ESB had no control over the Meelick lock. The ESB controlled water levels only on Lough Derg, he said.
Mr Sean Brogan, who was representing Bord na Mona, denied it was responsible for clogging up the river channels with silt from its bog workings.
He said all the studies available suggested that the board, which owns and operates 75,000 acres of bogland in the catchment area, was not responsible for silting.
He said there were many other reasons for silting, and Bord na Mona would not be allowed operate if it silted up the Shannon or any other river.
But there was consternation among the attendance, which had come from all along the Shannon and from Sligo and Galway, when it was told by Mr Brian Darcy, of the Office of Public Works, that it no longer had responsibility for navigation on the river.
He said that responsibility had been handed over to the Department of Arts, Heritage, Gaeltacht and the Islands, which was not represented at the meeting.
Earlier, the meeting had been addressed by a number of victims of flooding along the river, including Ms Maureen O'Brien from Clonown, south of Athlone.
She called for the raising of roads in the area to allow people carry on their normal business. She said people were fed up with being cut off from the rest of civilisation.
She said the people who were being hit on a yearly basis by Shannon flooding were "the forgotten people" and would be out of the limelight again when the floods receded.
A number of other speakers, including a Galway farmer, Mr Michael Silke, claimed that his land was being flooded because of the ESB's activity, and it could lower the levels at any stage.
Mr Paddy Murray, managing director of Ballygar Timber Products, which employs 200 people, said the site of his factory had been flooded, which had caused great disruption.
The Minister for Public Enterprise, Ms O'Rourke, told how she had visited families who were cut off at Carrickobrien over Christmas and the new year.
She said Westmeath County Council had offered accommodation to a number of families when the floods started to rise at Christmas, but none had taken up the offer.
She said she would support the Irish Farmers' Association call for a Shannon authority to take responsibility for total management of the catchment.
She said she would also be asking the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, to help rebuild roads which had been damaged not only by the Shannon but by other flooding rivers as well.
She added that she would be outlining the difficulties faced by farmers in the area to the Minister for Agriculture, Mr Walsh, to see if they could be helped.
She said the days when people called for the Shannon to be drained were over, but work must commence on maintaining the channels between the buoys and the shore which are not currently being maintained.
The IFA will meet Duchas, the Heritage Service, later today, and the matter is expected to be raised at the national pay talks when they resume.