Tommy Broughan, an Independent TD for the Dublin Bay North Constituency, has called on the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Simon Coveney, to urgently provide funding for dredging of Howth Harbor.
The Howth Harbor is an economically important working harbor used by fishing trawlers, by many leisure groups and enjoyed by over 500,000 tourists visiting the area each year.
Members of the ‘Howth Harbor Action Group’ contacted Deputy Broughan recently to raise serious concerns about the build-up of silt in the harbor and the damaging effect it is having on the area.
Howth Harbor has not been dredged in decades and the action group, made up of representatives from the Yacht Club, the Boating and Sailing Club, a large trawling company and local businesses, report that this neglect has led to almost 6 feet of silt building up in the Harbor.
The Howth Harbor Action Group believes that the harbor is facing an operational crisis due to the lack of dredging since 1982. Even medium sized trawlers find it difficult to enter the harbor at low tide and ‘groundings’ of working and leisure vessels is more common.
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