Dinish Wharf Expansion - Castletownbere

Aerial footage of Dinish Wharf Expansion - Castletownbere in West Cork.

West Cork's fishing industry is to gain a new €23.5m, 216m long quay development following approval of the project and associated works on Dinish Island, Castletownbere.

Castletownbere Fishery Harbour Centre is one of the six designated Fishery Harbour Centres which are owned, managed and maintained by the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine.

The last major landing quay development in Castletownbere was completed in 2010. Since then, overall landings into Castletownbere have increased by 60% in volume from 19,030t to 30,522t. The value of landing increased from €29.9m to €99.4m in 2017.

The Dinish Wharf Expansion Project will deliver an additional 216m of landing berth, 0.9 hectares of highly usable reclaimed quay storage area, two new breakwater structures at the entrance to the harbour, the navigation channel dredged to -6.5mCD and a berthing pocket dredged to -8.0mCD to further facilitate landings by vessels up to 100m length overall.

This project forms part of Ireland’s Operational Programme (OP) and is supported by the European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) 2014 – 2020. The Irish OP is aimed at achieving key national development priorities in the agri-food sector, along with “Europe 2020” objectives. The project is co-funded by the Government of Ireland and the European Union.

The Contract was signed on 04 August 2018. The Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Michael Creed attended the signing with the main contractor, L&M Keating Ltd, RPS Group Ltd the main consultant, the Harbour Master and Department officials.