Humphreys yet to respond to urgent calls for Dursey Island ferry service

The Dursey Island cable car will go out of service shortly for maintenance works.

Minister for Rural and Community Development Heather Humphreys has yet to respond to an urgent request for a subsidised ferry service for an island off the south-west coast about to lose its cable car connectivity with the mainland.

Time is rapidly running out for farmers, seasonal B&B operators and holiday homeowners on Dursey island as the cable car access to it will be closed in two weeks’ time. Cork County Council, which operates the cable car, is having to close it for major maintenance work resulting from repeated storm damage. It requested the government introduce a subsidised ferry service, which it has done on other islands, to ensure access in and out of Dursey while the work is being completed.

The cable car was opened in 1969 by then Taoiseach Jack Lynch, primarily because sea-crossing in the winter months was very precarious across the dangerous Dursey Sound.

The council has signalled it’s unlikely to be operational again until November.

The local authority has written twice in recent weeks to the minister Heather Humphreys, asking her to introduce a ferry service while the cable car repair work is going on. However, it is yet to receive a reply.

'Worrying'

Bantry-based independent councillor Danny Collins said the “situation at Dursey is now getting worrying” with just two weeks to go before the cable car is put out of service.

  “This will leave a lot of stakeholders, the couple of residents who live on the Island and the farmers who have cattle and sheep there without a service to bring them to and from the island and mainland to check on their stock. You also have people who have guest houses on the island. All these people are going through very uncertain times,” Mr Collins said.

He said that while some government TDs are saying progress is expected to be made on the issue, the council is still waiting to hear what Ms Humphrey’s intends to do.

“Minister Humphries must provide a ferry service immediately. We have been calling for this for weeks,” he said.

He said his brother, Cork South West TD Michael Collins, raised the issue in the Dáil the day after the council announced the works had to be done. 

“The minister’s department must sit down with all stakeholders and interested parties and get it sorted for once and for all. Time is of the essence,” Danny Collins said.

Fianna Fáil councillor Patrick Gerard Murphy said the Mayor of County Cork, Fianna Fáil councillor Gillian Coughlan had written twice to Ms Humphreys on the issue and he was also very worried that there had been no reply.

A spokeswoman for the council’s Corporate Affairs department said there were “ongoing interactions” between the department and themselves but was unable to confirm what Ms Humphreys was planning to counteract the disruption the cab car closure will cause.