It is no secret that flooding over the winter caused untold levels of damage to many homes and businesses in rural Ireland. The findings of the Comptroller and Auditor General's report on The strategic Planning for Flood Risk Management highlighted total failure on behalf of various Government bodies to take decisive action on an issue that affects so many. For farmers on the Shannon Callows it was the last straw and now they are stepping up their campaign by holding a protest in Banagher on Saturday 9 April.

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"The situation is nearly a carbon copy of 2009 which nearly bankrupted us," John Claffey, secretary of the Shannon Action Committee, told the Irish Farmers Journal. "There's low milk prices and bad weather just like it was in 2009. If you can't use your land you can't make money."

While flooding is not uncommon on the Callows, farmers are struggling to cope with floods for prolonged periods of time because of damage caused to land. Calls for a body to be set up to manage the river Shannon and dredging of the river have not been answered.

The protest on Saturday is targeted at making a stand against land designations imposed on farmers by the National Parks and Wildlife Service. The farmers say that the refusal of the NPWS to allow remedial works take place on rivers and turloughs has contributed to severe flooding, described by one man as being akin to having an 'atomic bomb' dropped on the land. Just last week signs were erected along the Shannon by farmers telling the NPWS and Birdwatch to "Keep off our Lands".

Letter to An Taoiseach

The costs, restrictions and loss of income is ongoing.

The Shannon Action Committee sent a letter to An Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, in mid January this year highlighting unresolved issues over land designations. In particular it focuses on the 2003 Sustaining Progress partnership agreement that laid out the framework of how the designations were to be implemented. The Shannon Action Committee said that by not allowing farmers to renew their participation in the NPWS five year farm plan is "in clear breach of the agreement".

"No subsequent agreement was reached between the Department of the Environment, Heritage and local Government and the farm organisations," the letter reads. "The designation on our land is permanent and can only be liften by the European Parliament. The costs, restrictions and loss of income is ongoing."

The letter goes on to say that in response to that a letter from the Minister for Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, Heather Humphries, said that "the scheme was a five year scheme only and was compensation for measure above and beyond the original prescription."

However the Shannon Action Committee maintains that the 2003 agreement never placed a limit of five years on the compensation scheme, but that it specified that compensation would be ongoing.

"The last few weeks have shown just how difficult it is to live and farm in the Shannon Callow. Anger and frustration is reaching boiling point and all our resonable efforts to find a solution have come to nothing," the letter states.

A request for a meeting with the Taoiseach has not been met, the committee received a letter from the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, to say that someone would be in touch to discuss those issues but the committee said that they haven't heard anything since.

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