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Water Framework Directive (WFD) statutory authorities and stakeholders in Ireland are now challenged with the issue of how the proposed programmes of measures in the newly required River Basin Management Plans - designed to protect and restore good ecology by reverting as closely as possible back to natural conditions - are to be implemented in a way that concurrently complies with other existing and emerging intersecting European Union legislation, such as the Floods Directive (FD). The WFD is driven largely by ecological considerations, whereas the FD and other legislation are more geared towards protecting physical property and mitigating public safety risks. Thus many of the same waterbodies, especially heavily modified waterbodies, arguably have somewhat competing policy objectives put upon them. This paper explores the means by which Ireland might best achieve the highest degrees of cost effectiveness, economic efficiency and institutional durability in pursuing the common and overarching objective of the WFD and FD - to ensure Irish waterways are put to their highest valued uses.

The design of two microelectromechanical (MEMS) devices that form part of a micro acoustomagnetic transducer for use with a hearing-aid instrument is described in this paper. The transducer will convert acoustical energy into an electrical signal using a MEMS realization of a capacitive microphone. The output signal from the microphone undergoes signal conditioning and processing in order to drive a MEMS electromagnetic actuator. The resultant magnetic field is used to exert a force on a high coercivity permanent micromagnet that has been implanted on the round window of the cochlea. The motion of the implanted magnet will develop traveling waves on the basilar membrane inside the cochlea to give a hearing capability. A high-sensitivity MEMS based capacitor microphone is designed using a polysilicon Germanium diaphragm. The microphone is constructed using a combination of surface and bulk micromachining techniques, in a single wafer process. The microphone diaphragm has a proposed thickness of 0.7 .tm, an area of 2.6 mm2, an air gap of 3.0 tm and a 1 pm thick silicon nitride backplate with acoustical ports. An output voltage signal is obtained from the capacitor microphone using a capacitive voltage divider network and amplified by a simple source follower circuit. A 12.0 volt DC bias voltage is applied between the diaphragm and the backplate. A sensitivity of more than 45.0mV/Pa is expected for the microphone, with a high frequency response extending up to 20 kHz. The MEMS based micro-magnetic actuator is realized in a modular implementation consisting of a high permeability supermalloy core, sixteen planar copper coils, and an organic polymer (bisbenzo-cyclobutene) used as an insulator between the coil layers. This modular implementation allows the magnetomotive force performance characteristics of the electromagnetic actuator to be changed by depositing additional layers of the magnet core and their associated section of excitation winding. A UV lithography process is used to pattern SU-8 thick photoresist to form a mold for the electrodeposition of the copper coils. The electromagnetic actuator is capable of producing a timevarying magnetic force with a maximum magnitude of 250 tN at a distance of 500 tm. The two MEMS structures have been designed and simulated using the IntelliSuite MEMS software package from IntelliSense Corporation. The MEMS structures are still undergoing development and have not yet been fabricated.

Optical networks require optical switching systems with high linear fill factor mirror arrays for wavelength add/drop nodes. The mirrors presented here use coils attached to the mirrors interacting with the field from a permanent magnet array. Results of magnetic and mechanical FEA modeling are presented. Fill factors in excess of 90% were achieved, and mirror rotation in excess of 5° (mechanical angle) with less than 10 mA current was demonstrated. Mirrors operated in excess of 2.8 billion cycles with no fatigue or failures.