A LEGAL difficulty could scupper plans to build a marina in Rosses Point.

The plan is to provide a marina with berths for 40 vessels at a cost of €2.14 million in a first phase, with a further 26 berths in a second phase at a cost of €356,000.

But since funding for the marina was first announced in 2001 the project has encountered anything but plain sailing.

It has encountered difficulty after difficulty and the saga has been an ongoing one at meetings of Sligo County Council.

Its problems appear to lie in the manner in which approval for it was granted by the then Minister for the Marine Frank Fahy.

Mr Fahey announced funding totalling E5.72 million for four marinas. Along with Rosses Point, the others were for Kenmare and Cahirsiveen in Kerry and Roundstone in Galway.

Mr Fahey directed his department to treat the marinas as priorities and process them outside the procedures provided in the National Development Plan.

However that approach caused concern with officials in his department and was called into question by the Comptroller and Auditor General in his 2003 report, published a couple of weeks ago.

Officials from the Department of Communications, Marine and Natural Resources were called before the Public Accounts Committee in relation to the matter last Thursday.

Sligo-Leitrim TD John Perry, who chaired that committee, also raised the issue in the Dail with the Minister, Noel Dempsey last week.

In reply to Mr Perry’s query as to what progress had been made, the Minister said that significant progress had been made on a number of aspects of the project, on foot of a recent meeting of officials from his department and Sligo County Council.

This was in particular with regard to the underwriting of the project (by the County Council), maximisation of the tourism value of the project, the satisfactory addressing of safety concerns and agreement on the valuation of the foreshore lease.

But he said that one further difficulty remained which concerned the state aid implications of the proposed grant.

“It appears from legal advice recently received that the State aid approval for the Marine Tourism Grant Scheme does not extend to the four marine infrastructure projects that were selected for funding outside of the scheme.

“Further legal advice is awaited on certain aspects of this matter and my department is considering all available options to resolve this difficulty”, the Minister said.

The future of the project now appears to lie in someone coming up with a way around the legal difficulty. The EU will have the final decision on whether the grant approval for the marina projects conforms with state aid rules.

John Perry believes Sligo County Council must act to save the project, however Sligo County Council say that they have gone as far as they can and it is now out of their hands.

Dorothy Clarke, the Council’s Director of Community and Enterprise, agreed that this was a major stumbling block.

“We are disappointed that this issue has arisen but we are hopeful that the Department may be able to come up with a solution. This needs to happen as quickly as possible because any further delay will make the project more difficult and more expensive.”

She said that the Council had responded to all the Department requests for information and clarification and it was now beyond their control.

Sligo Weekender October 19, 2004

Rossespoint Marina