€200m port revamp set for ‘fast-track’

Date Published: 24-Jan-2013

BY ENDA CUNNINGHAM

Plans for the €200 million redevelopment of Galway Port are set to be progressed in the next six weeks after the publication of a new policy document by Transport and Tourism Minister Leo Varadkar.

The ‘Port Policy Statement’ will be published in the next four to six weeks, and is expected to contain key recommendations which will bolster a planning application to be made under European legislation – the first of its kind in the country.

The IROPI legislation (Imperative Reasons of Overriding Public Interest) overrides existing planning regulations in this country, and has previously been successful for port developments in Britain and Europe.

The ‘fast tracking’ will be approved if Galway Harbour Company can prove the new port will be of huge economic benefit to the region and the country as a whole.

Under the IROPI route, the Harbour Board concede that the development of the new port will have an impact on the ecology of the site at inner Galway Bay, a designated European Natura 2000 habitat.

But, crucially, the Harbour Board’s Environmental Impact Statement, which is complete, will argue that the proposed development will have no “significant” ecological impact on Galway Bay.

Galway West Deputy Brian Walsh told the Galway City Tribune that a planning application is “imminent”, but one factor that will help it through is if Galway Port is given a ‘status’ in the new national policy document.

“Minister Varadkar is working on it at the moment, and it should be finished in the next four to six weeks, and I understand it will contain a strong statement in support of Galway Harbour which would very much benefit the Harbour Company under IROPI.

“Not only will the new port be of local and regional importance, it also has a role to play in the recovery of the economy nationally.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.