About Us

Waterways Ireland is one of six North/South Implementation Bodies set up under the Good Friday Agreement to manage, maintain, develop and restore the inland navigable waterways system on the island, principally for recreational purposes.

Waterways Ireland has been designated as a body to which all aspects of the Section 75 Northern Ireland Act 1998 apply. The Body's Equality Scheme was approved in September 2002.

Visit www.waterwaysireland.org for more information.

The e-consultation research project (ECRP) is a collaboration between; Queens university Belfast, the National Institute of Regional and Spatial Analysis (NIRSA) Nui Maynooth and Letterkenny Institute of Technology, Letterkenny Co Donegal. The project is funded by HEA under the peace 2 initiative for peace and reconciliation.

E-consultation is the use of electronic computing and communication technologies in consultation processes and is complimentary to existing practices. Our objective is to identify the technologies and processes that are most appropriate to the needs of diverse local communities. Our aim is to turn e-consultation in Northern Ireland and the border counties from an experimental idea to a practical option for community, voluntary and public sector bodies. This will strengthen democracy through engaging citizens in governance and improving consultation processes.

Visit www.e-consultation.org for more information.

As part of our ongoing research the E-consultation Research Project (ECRP) were seeking organisations both North and South who were about to become directly involved in public consultation, to participate in e-consultation sessions. The reasons for eliciting such organisations was we wanted to see how e-consultation worked in practice and which technologies are suited to which consultation situation.

Waterways Ireland was one of four such organisations selected to participate in E-consultation trials. The e-consultation research project is merely facilitating the consultation through the development of the consultation website and ICT services. we will not be using information submitted to the consultation, merely trying to determine the overall effectiveness of e-consultation for eliciting responses in a consultation situation.