We're nicking their water!

It is the duty of this column to bring you news of impending rows. The big row that is now brewing is over the plan to take water from the Shannon system and to pump it to Dublin.
This mightn't seem like a big deal to you now but it's going to be right up there with the Tara and Corrib gas schmozzles. It's going to be a major headache for any future Fianna Fail/Green coalition because it presses all the wrong buttons. The lobsided development between east and west, the costs of headlong economic growth, the scarcity of resources, the need to charge for water...all long-term time bombs.
The problem is that Dublin needs water and there's no more to be had locally. Over the past twenty years our water masters have fought the good fight. Demand and supply of water in Dublin has been on a knife edge. The two major water plants at Ballymore Eustace and Leixlip have been expanded to their limit. A massive pipe replacement program has reduced leakage from 40% to 30%. Without water meters (and what a row that will be!) there is a practical limit to any more gains from fixing pipes.
To put some figures on it, at the moment (2005) Dublin's peak demand is 558 Megalitres per day. We can sustainably supply 509 megalitres per day. Do the maths and it comes out negative. We are adding splishes and sploshes from various sources to stave off disaster but basically we have a big problem.
The bottom line is that we need water and there are only two viable ways to get it. One is to suck it out of the Irish Sea. Despite the fact that we nearly destroy everything we eat with prodigious quantities of salt, not even the Irish can drink salt water. We would need to build a big desalination plant and distill the water. It would be an environmental nightmare and, given that water never stops falling here, would make Ireland the laughing stock of the world.
The other option is to take water from Ireland's biggest river system, the Shannon. This means running a pipe from Lough Ree to Dublin. It's a simple, viable, cost-effective solution.
But the damn natives are restless. Already environmental jihadists from Lanesborough at the top of the lake, to Athlone at the bottom and headquartered around Ballymahon in the middle have declared it their life's mission that the Dubs will not drink one drop of Shannon water.
The lake and the river are a major source of employment in the area and much of the plans for the future revolve around tourism. The fear is that the plan will lead to a significant drop in the levels of the lake in the summer. Dublin City Council denies this, citing a study showing that water levels won't be affected.
The locals don't believe it and I'm not sure I do either. It seems obvious that the biggest demand for water will occur just when river levels at at their lowest. And what will happen in 15 or twenty years time when Dublin outgrows this capacity?
Let the battle commence.