The Oireachtas Public Petitions Committee heard the concerns in Leinster House on Wednesday last (8th) and the subsequent appeal by Paul Kavanagh and Tommy Lawton, members of the Save Our Weir Save Our Salmon group, to have urgent works carried out on Fermoy weir.

Seán Sherlock TD (Labour) is chairman of the said committee but was unavoidably absent on the day. The meeting was chaired by his constituency colleague, Pat Buckley TD (Sinn Fein).

“It was Sean Sherlock’s idea that the long-running weir saga be brought before his committee which has statutory powers, and there was a certain symmetry to that. I can recall being upstairs in Fermoy Rowing Club for one of the very first meetings with government and fishery board officials more than a decade ago, when we were told ‘Fermoy Weir would have to go’,” Donal O’Keeffe said this week (see website for full text of ‘In My Opinion’).

Full story in this week’s Print & Digital Edition