DCSIMG

Foyle Ferry back on 
the Assembly agenda

The future of the Foyle Ferry Service which operates between Magilligan and Greencastle will be discussed by the Regional Development Committee at Stormont in the next few weeks.

The issue was re-floated by East Derry SDLP Assembly Member John Dallat after it was disclosed that the Rathlin Ferry Service received subsidies of £2.67 million in the last four years.

He said: “I am delighted that the Regional Development Committee is to examine all three ferry services including Strangford, Rathlin and Foyle.

“The Foyle Service is currently tied up due to lack of funding and that is unacceptable. It impacts on everyday life for people in County Donegal and County Derry, it prevents tourists making the crossing from one jurisdiction to the other and it wouldn’t happen in any other part of the world.

“The intelligent solution to this problem is to have the ferry service funded by the Department of Regional Development in the North and the Department of Transport in the South. At present the Foyle Ferry Company receives a small subsidy from Limavady Borough Council and Donegal County Council with no guarantee that it will exist in the future.

“Fourteen years into the Good Friday Agreement it is surely time the practical problems created by partition were sorted out by mutual agreement to the advantage 
of people in both sides of the 
border.

“The Foyle Ferry Service, when it operated full-time carried many tourists in both directions for 12 months of the year filling empty beds in Inishowen and the North West. It also allowed students to take courses on both sides of the border and, of course, generated valuable trade in both directions.”


 
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Monday 20 May 2013

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