THE RECENT LOSS of the Cork-Swansea ferry route is likely to have an impact on tourism in the Southern region, the Minister of State for Transport, Tourism and Sport has admitted.
Michael Ring said he had been “disappointed” to learn that the service had ceased to operate following an examinership process.
The owners the Cork-Swansea Fastnet Line ferry confirmed earlier this month that the service was to stop with the direct loss of 78 jobs, and estimated that it would cause losses of €30 million in the Munster region.
Responding to an Oireactas question by Deputy Martin Ferris, Ring said that State tourism agencies had been supportive of the ferry service since its inception and that the company had been provided with provided co-operative marketing support, offered a range of business supports and Fáilte Ireland certified the venture for Business Expansion Scheme funding.
In more recent months, State tourism agencies had been engaged in providing general business supports designed to help secure sales at the company, Ring said. ”Regrettably the company was not able to reach a position where it could have availed of those supports’” he added.
Despite offering support “within the strict confines of EU State Aid rules”, Ring said that ultimately neither his Department nor the State Agencies under its remit had a “function in the subsidisation or provision of ferry services for this or other routes or indeed the finance to do so.”
“I accept that the loss of the service is likely to have some impact on tourism in the Southern region,” Ring added.
An interim examiner was appointed to Fastnet Line in November 2011. In February 2012, the West Cork Tourism Co-Operative Society Limited said it had been unable to raise adequate funds to maintain the troubled service and, consequently, the examinership had failed.
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