In Germany he developed an ambitious proposal for using the 30m drop from Killaloe to Limerick, and persuaded the company to back it. Chaloner Smith's paper enabled him to overcome the objections to Theodore Steven's 1915 proposals for a Shannon scheme, which was based on inadequate data. He went to London and Ireland at the end of 1923 and met his college friend Patrick McGilligan who was now Minister for Industry and Commerce in the new Irish Free State government. McGilligan was enthusiastic about the idea.