Officials from the Department of the Marine are due in Sligo on Monday to examine the wreck of the Russian ship which was burned out at Sligo harbour last weekend.
The Ancichka had been abandoned in the harbour for five years since arriving from St Petersburg. The Sligo Harbour Board has now sought the advice of the Department of the Marine as to what to do with the damaged vessel. The ship is now safe following an extensive fire service operation and there is no threat of oil pollution. However water on board made dirty by the fire will have to be pumped off. According to the chairman of Sligo Harbour Commissioners, Mr Seamus Monaghan, the ship is blocking the harbour and represents a threat.
"There is very little oil on board, but we need to have the expertise of the Department of the Marine to know what course of action to take," he said.
It is most likely that the ship will be scrapped, although it is unclear if this will take place in Sligo.
Meanwhile, the cause of the fire is still unknown but the incident is being treated as suspicious, according to Sligo/Leitrim chief fire officer Mr Paul Coyle. A second fire which broke out hours later in a meat factory in the docks area, just yards from the ship, is also being described as suspicious.
"The entire inside of the ship was destroyed" says Mr Coyle. "All that's left is the hull and the superstructure."
The Ancichka was launched in 1959 and was used as a holiday craft, sailing between the rivers of Moscow and St Petersburg.
It was built for 340 passengers and 44 crew. It arrived at Sligo harbour in October 1996 for refurbishment work to make it into a luxury hotel following agreement between its owners and a Northern Ireland businessman.
When the latter pulled out of the deal, the ship had already sailed from St Petersburg, and arrived in Sligo for what would be a five- year stay.
At the time it was granted a licence for a temporary stay by the Minister for the Marine.
In 1997, the sale of the vessel as a floating hotel to be based in the Indian Ocean fell through.
In the following years it would also attract the interest of a Dublin-based golf club and a London-based ballet school. Earlier this year, however, it became the property of a north Donegal businessman, Mr John McDaid.
There began a stand-off between him and the Sligo Harbour Commissioners, who were anxious to have the ship leave the port. He gave assurances that he would remove the vessel by April.
However, by June he removed the life raft from the ship, making it a "dead vessel" and not fit to sail.
The Harbour Board threatened to sue Mr McDaid and insisted the vessel be moved.