Harbours and Piers
Seanad Éireann — 2026-03-24
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Noel O'Donovan (FG), Nominated by the Taoiseach

The Minister of State is very welcome and I thank him for being here. The condition of coastal infrastructure in west Cork, indeed throughout the country, particularly piers and slipways is the subject of my Commencement matter. Our coastal infrastructure facilities are not luxuries. They are lifelines for many in our community. They support fishing families, connect island communities and sustain tourism in some of the most economically important parts of rural Ireland and yet many are deteriorating. Years of underinvestment, combined with increasingly severe weather, has left them unsafe, unreliable and unfit for future demand. I think of Keelbeg pier in Union Hall, Pallas pier near Ardgroom on the Beara Peninsula, where mussel fishermen are in need of a pier extension to work during low tide, as well as the dredging required at Kinsale Harbour for the safety of boat access. I also think of ambitious projects like the development of a new marina in Schull or a marine activity centre in Bantry that simply are not happening.
We should be more ambitious for our coastline, but the current process is not working. Local authorities are being asked to deliver more with limited resources. From my experience, they often lack the staffing and funding needed to maintain and develop this essential infrastructure. However, funding alone is not enough. We need a national review of local authorities in terms of coastal marine management to identify what is working, where delays occur and which delivery models are most effective. Some projects progress efficiently while others stall. We should be learning from both. That review should focus on improving the development process, make it more efficient, better resourced and capable of delivering for communities. If we are serious about supporting coastal in rural Ireland, we must both invest in local authorities and reform how they deliver and develop our coastal marine infrastructure. The future of places like west Cork depends on this.

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Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2026-03-24/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:46+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-03-24