Greencastle Breakwater is to be officially opened on Friday

The £25million project will be opened by Minister for Agriculture, Food and Marine Charlie McConalogue TD.

The official opening of the project marks years of work and campaigning and speaking to the Journal, Donegal County Councillor Martin Farren said it has ‘tremendous potential’ to help develop tourism in the area.

"This is something that has been going on for many, many years and it’s nice to have it finally completed.

“We had numerous meetings and travelled to Dublin to meet with ministers in relation to the breakwater and each time, we were unsuccessful. Minister McConalogue took it upon himself to get it up and running as soon as possible and he managed to do that and make money available for it to be completed.

"The Greencastle Harbour Users Association also played a pivotal role in it too. It was all a team effort between us all and I’m delighted it has been completed and will now be officially open.”

Colr Farren said the breakwater makes the harbour much safer for boats and that ‘phase two’ of plans can now be looked at ‘as a whole’.

"It will look at fishing itself and will also look towards tourism and the development of the harbour to include tourism as a part of it. It has tremendous potential for cruise ships etc.

“This vital piece of infrastructure needed to be finished before we could move phase two forward and thankfully, that has now happened.”

Minister McConalogue T.D. said the breakwater is vital for the future of the locality.

Looking ahead to Friday’s opening ceremony, the Donegal minister said: “I’ve paid a number of visits to Greencastle Harbour over the last number of months, and to see everything done and the project finished to such a high standard has been really pleasing.”

“This important piece of marine infrastructure is going to have such a positive impact on the locality. It will also support economic diversification which is vital for the growth and sustainability of the wider community directly impacted by Brexit,” Minister McConalogue added.

Pointing out that the purpose of the project is to improve the storm shelter characteristics of the harbour, increase the harbour area and provide new berthage, Minister McConalogue continued: “The investment of €25 million in Greencastle will see a major improvement in the sustainability of resilience of our coastal communities. Making sure that this project was delivered has been a priority for me since I was first elected. The importance of this project to Inishowen and the northwest can’t be stressed enough.”

“In June of last year, I had the honour of breaking ground on the project with Cllr. Liam Blaney. The works included the construction of a 150-metre extension to the existing breakwater and the placement of 350,000 tonnes of rock core and armour. It’s fantastic that ten months on, we are getting ready for the official opening ceremony,” the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine added.