Harbour access is guaranteed by Department

Continued public access and use of the facilities at the Old Coal Harbour in Dun Laoghaire has been guaranteed by the Department of the Marine.

The guarantee was contained in a letter which was circulated at a board meeting of the Dun Laoghaire company last week, The Irish Times has learned. The letter setting out the criteria for future development of the harbour makes it clear that existing facilities currently enjoyed by harbour users must remain open to the public. The letter also makes it clear that any future developments at the harbour should be financially self-supporting.

The letter was circulated to harbour board members, by the harbour manager, Mr Michael Hanahoe, following criticism from the Coal Harbour Users Group (CHUG) that the company intended to hand over administration of the Coal Harbour to the developers of the new marina.

Mr Hanahoe told the members that there never was any attempt to exclude existing users from the Coal Harbour or infringe public access to either the boatyard or the slipway.

Mr Hanahoe told The Irish Times that this guarantee had been given repeatedly and publicly and he added that the £45 per season charge for use of the boatyard would remain for the coming year and that after that there would not be "sudden or unreasonable" increases.

He said access would be improved by the provision of breakwaters serving the new marina, which would, for the first time allow the general public into the central harbour area.

One councillor, Mrs Betty Coffey, said yesterday she was angry that she had been accused by CHUG of abstaining on the council vote.

She said she was not present and insists that her record on the issue of public access is impeccable and that she has campaigned for many years to preserve facilities for users such as St Michael's Rowing Club. "It is a shoddy trick. Everybody knows my position on the harbour access and I was the one who told the Harbour Company that the letter giving the reassurances to the existing users group should be circulated," said Mrs Coffey.

She said that CHUG had been constantly reassured on the issue of access and improvement to the Coal Harbour, but she felt that it wanted to control the harbour for itself.

She also took issue with the allegation that she abstained. "I left that meeting early because I had to leave, and the other councillors know that, but before I left I made my position clear. Not being there is not the same as abstaining and the way it was put across by CHUG was cheap," she said.