The EU has ordered a halt to road works in Co Tipperary while it investigates claims the project could damage one of Lough Derg's primary fish-spawning grounds. Cian McCormack reports.
A complaint made to Brussels by the Nenagh Ormond Anglers informed EU officials that North Tipperary County Council's plan to divert the Nenagh River at Latteragh to facilitate realignment road works would destroy vital spawning beds of trout and salmon.
The anglers' group, the Shannon Regional Fisheries Board and the North Tipperary branch of An Taisce welcomed the decision yesterday.
Ormond Anglers spokesman Mr Joe O'Donoghue said the council had started the works without consultations.
When the work was stopped by the fishery board the council engaged in a public consultation process, but he said the local authority then went on to ignore the concerns raised in a submission made by his group, along with submissions by the Lough Derg Anglers' Association, the fishery board and An Taisce.
"This particular stretch of river has been untouched for thousands of years", and they were not prepared to let the council destroy it.
The chief executive officer of the Shannon Fisheries Board, Mr Eamonn Cusack, said: "We welcome the cancellation of the work, and understand that the work is been investigated."
A spokesman for An Taisce, Mr Paddy Mackey, said: "We hope now that reason will prevail, and that this important stretch of the river can be saved."
The North Tipperary County Council's senior roads engineer, Mr Marcus O'Connor, said the council had been asked by the European Commission to halt the work until the anglers' complaint could be investigated.
Speaking at a Nenagh-Newport Electoral Area meeting in Newport on Monday, Mr O'Connor said the council had engaged in a public consultation process before the works.
He said most of the elected members of the council had agreed that the works should go ahead when the plans for the project were presented at a full council meeting in July.
No great work had been done in the area to date, he said. The council had several meetings with the fishery board, who were quite happy that things were progressing well. "I hope that when the investigation is completed that we can get on and do the work because it is very necessary. This is a deadly dangerous stretch of road."