Posted online: Jan 27th, 2010

Moville-based Labour Councillor Martin Farren has accused the Government “failing the people of Greencastle.”

Councillor Farren was reacting to the announcement on Monday that the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food had decided to stop work on the breakwater at Greencastle Harbour and “formally disengage from the project.”

Almost Ä8m has been spent on the project to date. However, Department engineering staff and Donegal County Council engineers met on Thursday last to begin the disengagement process and return the site to the Council.

According to the Greencastle Harbour Users Committee, Ä104,000 has been budgeted for this year -  “just enough to pay off the workers and close the gates on the project.”

Reports suggest work may not resume for another five to ten years. 

An angry Councillor Farren said work on the breakwater must continue as the harbour had “enormous potential.”

He said: “While the Department did get their allocation cut this year, they still got allocated Ä10m – nobody seems to know yet where this is going.

“Even if we got Ä800,000 of that we could keep the project going. We can’t allow this closure of the project to happen. It will have a knock-on effect on fishing itself and the Government has already failed us miserably regarding fishing quotas. Greencastle harbour has enormous potential. Even from a tourism point of view, we had many liners coming in to dock there.

“When the Department began the project they could see the importance of the breakwater to Greencastle and the potential that exists there – otherwise they wouldn’t have started it. The harbour is an excellent resource and the millions of euro spent on it is now in danger of being washed away with the tide.”

There are also concerns the unfinished works have made the harbour “now more dangerous” than when the project started. As the breakwater is not complete – indeed it is submerged at times – it is causing changes to the currents in the area. There are also fears that the rock armour could become dislodged and end up going into the harbour.”

The Greencastle Harbour Users Committee called the move a “retrograde step” which was “totally unacceptable.”

They said: “The breakwater was designed to shelter the inside harbour and to protect the inner entrance from bad weather thus improving the safety of boats and crews within the harbour.

“However, to abandon the project at this stage will leave the breakwater at a critical stage. It is not long enough to shelter the harbour entrance from our prevailing worst weather but is long enough to be causing critical changes to the currents at the approaches to the harbour making entry to the harbour more dangerous.”