A passenger and freight ferry between Galway and the Aran Islands that receives an annual state subsidy of €603,000 carried only 42 passengers in the first five months of the year, it has emerged.
Figures given to the Dáil Committee of Public Accounts show that the number of passengers travelling on the O'Brien Shipping service has collapsed in the past four years.
They show that the company's 240-seater ferry carried no passengers at all in October 2002 and November 2001, and fewer than 10 in some off-peak months.
The service on the MV Oileáin carried 1,047 people last year, down from 25,123 in 1999. It carried 19,288 passengers in 2000 and 11,796 in 2001.
O'Brien Shipping has operated the state-funded service since 1992. The company is controlled by two Co Clare businessmen, Mr Kevin O'Brien of Doolin and Mr William O'Brien of Kilfenora (not related).
After an audit, they each made tax settlements of €139,700 with the Revenue in 2001.
A company spokesman attributed the fall in the number of passengers to a €95,000 cut in the state subsidy in 1997, which led to a cut in the number of sailings after 2000.
He said the present subsidy was inadequate. "We would need a further €250,000 per annum on top of freight to make it viable." In 2000 the company had cut the number of sailings from seven weekly to four during summer and three in winter.
In a report last year that drew attention to serious flaws in the contract, the Comptroller & Auditor General, Mr John Purcell, said the 1992 contract was renewed for seven years in 1997 even though the Department of Arts, Heritage, the Gaeltacht and the Islands was aware of shortcomings in the service.
While the State subsidy is worth €4.22 million in the seven years to the end of 2004, Mr Purcell said the Department renewed the contract without conducting an evaluation of the performance of O'Brien Shipping or the use of its service.
The arrangements are now the subject of an examination by the Committee of Public Accounts, which sought information on passenger and freight numbers.
While the January-May period is not usually a busy one for the O'Brien Shipping service, the 42 passengers carried in the first five months this year are down from 1,881 in 1999, 798 in 2000, and 240 in 2001. Some 39 passengers were carried in January-May last year. While 20,815 passengers were carried in 1999, this fell to 17,111 in 2000, to 11,184 in 2001 and to 947 last year.