Funding for the re opening of a 20-mile stretch of the Royal Canal between Abbeyshrule and Clondra in Co Longford has been approved.
The canal was closed to navigation in the 1960s and in the intervening period, six road bridges have been built across it and sections of the bogland banks have collapsed.
The cost of the restoration work has been estimated at £12 million at 1999 prices.
The waterways section of Duchas last year reopened navigation between Dublin and Co Longford by rebuilding a bridge at Mullingar. At the Dublin end, access to the Liffey will be restored when the current works at Croke Park are completed.
The last section, Abbeyshrule to Clondra, will restore navigation between the Liffey estuary and the Shannon. It is already possible to travel from Dublin via the Grand Canal to the Shannon.
The money for the restoration was contained in an allocation of about £40 million for inland waterways, within the Border Midlands and Western regional (BMW) operational programme announced yesterday.
The remaining funding is to be used to develop new and existing quayside and harbour facilities, including slipways. While the BMW operational programme provided only overall figures for waterways funding, a spokesman for Duchas confirmed that the allocation would be used to restore the Royal Canal access to the Shannon.
The spokesman added that work on dredging the canal had already begun and designs were being prepared for replacement bridges.
While a timescale for the work had not been set, it is expected that tenders could be signed within two years. The work should be completed by the end of the BMW operational programme in 2006.
The work will require the co-operation of Longford County Council in re-laying the approach roads to the bridges. However, Mr Jack Kilgallen, acting Longford county engineer, said yesterday that the council "knows nothing" about the project.
