Storm brewing in canal harbour
A storm is brewing at Mullingar Harbour over plans by Waterways Ireland to allow boats to moor there all year round.
Currently, boats owners can moor their vessels at the harbour and other public moorings on the Royal and Grand Canals for five days a month before moving on. However, if new canal bye-laws proposed by Waterways Ireland are passed, owners will be permitted to moor their boats at the harbour and other locations all year round.
When the Royal Canal Blueway was launched in August 2018, Mullingar Harbour was designated an activity zone. Since then the number of people using the harbour for amenity purposes has increased significantly.
One of the groups responsible for the increased activity is Mullingar Harbour Polo Canoe Club, which has been operating from the harbour since 2018 and is a Waterways Ireland licensee.
The club currently has 90 members and hosts some of the sport’s largest events in the country, bringing hundreds of players from across Ireland to Mullingar several times a year.
In its submission to Waterways Ireland, the club says that “the new bye-laws as drafted will have a devastating effect on the dynamic, shared nature of the Harbour, and will turn the harbour from ‘a place for all’ into a storage facility for boats that never move – unlimited mooring for boats that do minimal or no navigation”.
“This will obstruct not just our activities, but other amenity users and boat owners visiting the town.”
The club has invested more than €100,000 in equipment since its foundation five years ago. Its members are worried that the proposed bye-law changes could “over time, result in the cessation of our activities in the harbour and the destruction of a community organisation that has become a flagship user of the canal, locally and nationally”.
In order for it to retain its “multi-activity nature”, that club has suggested that Waterways Ireland include the harbour in its list of locations where boats can be moored for a maximum of five days.
Cllr Aoife Davitt voiced her concerns about the proposed changes at last Monday’s meeting of Mullingar Kinnegad Municipal District. Speaking to the Westmeath Examiner, Cllr Davitt said that fully supports the canoe club’s position.
“I feel that it is a leisure facility. It is a blueway hub and in recent years has had a lot of money invested in it.
“A lot of local primary and secondary schools students, as well as other local groups, use the harbour for recreational and educational purposes.”
Cllr Davitt says the current five-day mooring limit should be retained and Waterways Ireland should ensure that canoe club and other recreational users of the harbour have access at all times.
She also said that from a safety perspective, it is vital that people have access to the canal at all times.
Kay Baxter, president of the Inland Waterways Association of Ireland (IWAI), says that the current the five-day limit is rarely enforced outside of Dublin.
She says that draft bye-laws for the canals and a separate set for the Shannon-Erne Waterway are “far from perfect” and that following the end of the public consultation phase, they will be amended.