CORK County Council is prepared to offer its expertise to the embattled MV Julia should its owners, the Fastnet Line, require help.

THE operators of the Cork to Swansea ferry service were forced to cancel its maiden passenger voyage again because of problems with certification.

THE owners of the Fastnet Line are confident that their ferry the MV Julia will shortly pass maritime authority inspections and start her maiden voyage from Cork at 9pm next Saturday.

THE fledgling Fastnet Line has been forced to cancel its first three ferry sailings on the Cork-Swansea route due to mechanical problems.

SPECULATION is mounting that government agencies in Ireland and Wales will shortly make a €3 million investment in the Fastnet Line.

THE man who looks set to rejuvenate the tourist industry in the south-west region got a standing ovation yesterday when he received the Cork Person of the Year Award from President Mary McAleese.

CORK County Council is to invest €200,000 in the new Cork-Swansea ferry, the MV Julia, which is set to sail on March 1 next.

FROM the outside it may look like little is going on but, within the magnificent passenger ferry MV Julia, workers are beavering away to make her shipshape in time to sail on March 1 next.

THE people of Cork will get a chance to see the new ferry which will operate the Swansea route when she docks on the city quays on Friday.

AFTER months of negotiation, a co-operative has completed the €7.8 million deal for a car and passenger ferry that will reopen the Cork-Swansea route.

AROUND 10 people have been interviewed for the post of chief executive of Ireland’s planned new ferry company.

DOZENS of people who rent holiday homes in West Cork could be forced out of business by “double taxation”.

WEST Cork Tourism is seeking to appoint a chief executive to run the Fastnet Line which will relaunch the Swansea-Cork ferry route next March.

PLANS to relaunch the Cork-Swansea ferry route have been dry-docked for this year.

A DECISION to defer the planned reintroduction of the Cork-Swansea route represents a major setback for the hard-pressed tourism industry in the south-west.

ONE of the leading figures behind the proposed restoration of Cork-Swansea ferry has been invited to address the Welsh Assembly in the hope it will provide a grant for the project.

Cork is set for a new ferry link with Britain from early June, it was claimed today.

A FINNISH bank has agreed to sell a ferry to an Irish consortium which hopes to restart the Cork-Swansea route by the end of next month.

FUNDRAISERS in Ireland and Wales have been given a new deadline of March 10 to come up with a shortfall in the e3 million needed to relaunch the Cork-Swansea ferry service.

THE man planning to re-launch the Cork-Swansea sea route is flying to Finland today where he hopes to conclude a deal to acquire a new €10 million ferry.

LOCAL businesses who have pledged e10,000 each to help buy a ferry for the discontinued Cork-Swansea route say they need just 70 more investors.

A MAN whose father was one of the main movers behind the first Swansea-Cork ferry link is hoping to resurrect the service and use its former name, the B&I (British & Irish) Line.

A NEW co-operative is aiming to raise a e3 million shortfall to re-float the Swansea-Cork ferry service.

A consortium of business people from the South West region, led by West Cork Tourism, have formed a co-operative in the hopes of raising €3 million in the coming days for the resumption of the Cork-Swansea ferry service.

A CASH-STRICKEN independent tourism organisation in West Cork has warned it cannot continue to operate on a “hand-to-mouth basis”.

THE main challenge facing the new Cork Airport designate-board appointed by Transport Minister Seamus Brennan yesterday will be to deliver a business plan showing how the major €153 million development can be funded.

TOURISM chiefs in West Cork have expressed concern that German holidaymakers may be hindered in visiting the region when Aer Lingus pulls the plug on its Dublin-Cork route next October.

Maybe things are better in rural Ireland. West Cork Tourism recently produced a 28-page magazine to give an overview of the main events going on in the area for the next few months, but it is priced at €2.