A weekend intervention by the Minister for the Marine, Dr Woods, may lead to a compromise being reached between fishermen in Cork Harbour and the international consortium of contractors involved on the £90 million Lee Tunnel project.
The main contractors on the project - Tarmac Walls - have made a case for the dredging of the Spit Bank, in Cork's lower harbour, to provide infill to be used on the tunnel project. However, Cobh-based fishermen have told the Department of the Marine that when the bank was last dredged for similar purposes 17 years ago, during the construction of a new deep-water quay at Ringaskiddy, in Cork's lower harbour, serious ecological damage was caused.
The fishermen claim that when the Ringaskiddy project was under way port authorities in Cork guaranteed them that, despite the massive dredging on the Spit Bank, the harbour would naturally recover. They claim that such pledges were meaningless because independent tests using sonar have shown to the fishermen that the bank has not recovered.
Mr John Hennessy, a spokesman for the fishermen, said the Spit Bank was of prime ecological importance to Cork Harbour and was a rare breeding ground for numbers of fish species. Any further destruction of its delicate ecosystem, he added, could have long-term repercussions for the balance of marine life in the harbour.
Mr Hennessy said following a lengthy meeting with Dr Woods in Dublin at the weekend that the Minister had undertaken to approach the contractors and ask them to consider altering their programme and not to continue dredging on the Spit Bank, despite licensed approval, until there had been further consultations with the Cobh Fishermen's Association.
The tunnel will be finished next summer. When it was announced, it was the single largest local authority project undertaken in the State.
Meanwhile, at the weekend, six concrete tunnels which will be used to ferry traffic under the Lee were put in place.
The operation to float these submersible sections across the river and then sink them into place beneath the river bed started last June.
Now that the tunnel sections are in place, back filling of the tunnel trench will begin, and this will lead to the restoration of the river profile of the Lee. The approach works which made the tunnel project possible, and which dramatically altered the hinterland adjoining the river, will also be restored. Within a number of years, say the engineers, there will be no evidence that such a massive project had been undertaken.