Tense exchange erupts after questions of biodiversity ‘excuse’ in Tipperary river clean-up
Tensions flared at a council meeting in Tipperary after questions about biodiversity reignited a long-running dispute over the deteriorating condition of the River Suir.
At the November meeting of the Thurles Municipal District (MD), independent councillor Jim Ryan questioned if biodiversity was a genuine reason behind why nothing had been done to address concerns about the quality of the River Suir in the town, or just an excuse.
At a previous meeting, Cllr Ryan said the state of the River Suir in Thurles was a “disgrace and an embarrassment”, and said that something badly needed to be done with it.
"The disgraceful, embarrassing and shocking state of the River Suir in Thurles, at one stage it used to be full of swans, ducks and fish, but now it’s full of rubbish, bottles, cans, old shopping trolleys, and raw sewerage,” Cllr Ryan said previously.
Speaking at the November meeting, Cllr Ryan said that whenever issues were raised about the river, it seemed to get pushed down the road.
“Every time we seem to raise the issue regarding works that are required on the river, by the bridge and the castle there, we’re told that for biodiversity reasons we can’t do this and we can’t do that, we can’t disturb the riverbed, we can’t destroy fish stocks, it’s one of the biggest issues in Thurles,” he said.
“Either fairly or unfairly, biodiversity seems to be blamed for the lack of action being taken along the river in Thurles to clear away overgrowth, to clean out the river, to dredge the river, or whatever the case may be,” Cllr Ryan added.
The discussion grew tense when the Thurles MD district engineer Thomas Duffy remarked that a weekend workshop — which Cllr Ryan did not attend — had addressed every issue the councillor was now raising.
"It was an information session for everybody, and everybody was invited to get the message across, and unfortunately Jim, we all have commitments, you yourself were not there, but it was so informative, and answered every issue that you have just raised there, every issue, and it shouldn’t be for us to regurgitate it,” Mr Duffy said.
District Cathaoirleach Cllr Peggy Ryan said the event was “spectacular” and was very important.
“It was spectacular, I’ve never been at something as informative in relation to the river,” the Cathaoirleach said.
"It’s great to hear words like ‘spectacular’, but to landowners whose lands have been flooded, it doesn’t cut it with them,” Cllr Jim Ryan said.
"Just because I wasn’t at that meeting, doesn’t preclude me from asking the question,” he hit out.
"I had work commitments, I couldn’t attend it, I’m an accountant, I have to get tax returns in by this week, I shouldn’t even be here today, but I’m asking these questions and I’d like them to be answered,” he added.
In response, a representative from Tipperary County Council’s environment section said that biodiversity wasn’t just being used as an excuse and that there are no simple ways to solve pollution issues in the River Suir.
"We take on board that people are very upset at how the River Suir is at the centre of the town in the summer, but from a biodiversity point of view, we’re in the middle of a biodiversity crisis, so absolutely, biodiversity is a reason to not make rash decisions and quick fix actions,” the meeting was told.
"In terms of the River Suir, we know that it’s the inputs upstream, it’s very intensively farmed, it picks up a lot of phosphorus, a lot of nitrogen on the way into Thurles town, and we also now have climate which is warming waters and driving the growth of that extra plant material and extra algae, and it’s such a complex issue,” a representative from the environment section explained.
"In terms of biodiversity, we can’t just go in and remove all that bankside vegetation, that has a very important function. There’s no quick fix to this,” she said.
Adding that the council were aware of the issues and were working on it, the council’s environmental representative said that there would need to be a longer term approach to tackling issues in the river.
"People are working, there’s a lot of stakeholders, it’s not something that’s going to be fixed in the next year, probably not in the next five years, it took a long time to get to this point, so it’s going to take a long time to come up with a solution, and we need to make sure that the solution is the right one for the catchment, not just a quick fix and there’s a lot of science in the background,” she added.