Ships2Reef not costly enough for grant aid

Ships2Reef not costly enough for grant aid


Anna-Marie Flynn

FAILTE Ireland has reportedly turned down a funding application for Killala Bay’s Ships2Reef project – because the plan is not expensive enough!
The funding application made to the tourism authority under the Tourism Investment Programme does not fit several criteria to earn eligibility for grant aid, including falling €2 million short of the criteria’s €5 million project price tag.
Local election candidate, Michael Loftus, and also of the Grainne Uaile Sub Aqua Club, the group driving the project, told The Mayo News he ‘couldn’t believe it’ when he received correspondence about the funding application.
“We made the application to try and get a bit of help with the project but I didn’t think it would come back to us because we don’t want enough money – if anything, I thought we would be looking for too much. For an investment of just over €3 million, the return over fifty years is expected to be €150 million.  But under the Failte Ireland guidelines, the project has to have a minimum spend of €5 million. Failte Ireland states that this can go up to a maximum qualifying ceiling of €12 million. We estimate the artificial reef project will cost in the region of €4 million so it’s just not pricey enough it seems!”
Ships2Reef is a proposal to acquire and sink an ex war ship in Killala Bay in a bid to generate a fish and shellfish colony. It is hoped that it will become a welcome nursery for re-developing fish stocks in the bay.