The failure of the government to bring forward the River Shannon Management Agency Bill "must be addressed as a matter of urgency", one TD has said.

Independent TD Carol Nolan made the comment this week after the bill was placed on the Spring List of Priority Legislation for 2022.

According to Nolan, the bill was also included on the separate lists of priority legislation for summer and autumn 2021.

Nolan argued that "government and agency levels of responsiveness have been entirely disjointed and effectively uncoordinated".

"Ireland’s Catchment Flood Risk Assessment and Management [CFRAM] Programme has been meeting for the better part of a decade to develop strategies for the reduction of risk," the Laois-Offaly TD said.

"But we also know that there have been calls for an immediate and critical review on the effectiveness of the strategies adopted by the CFRAM Programme; the Flood Risk Management Plans [FRMPs]; and the Shannon Flood Risk State Agency Co-ordination Working Group for the reduction of flood risk," she added.

According to Nolan, the bill may be "good and what we need", or it may be "inadequately responsive and might make the situation worse if enacted".

"That is why we need to see it and to be able to scrutinise it to ensure that what emerges is good legislation capable of delivering meaningful change to how the Shannon is managed," she said.

"This approach to managing flood risk along the Shannon has failed. It needs to be far more responsive to the immediate needs of farmers and landowners who are being adversely affected several times a year at this point," Nolan concluded.