The Government has approved the completion of the replica Dunbrody Famine ship, ending months of uncertainty about the project. Construction work on the vessel in New Ross, Co Wexford, stopped last summer after the ambitious project ran into funding difficulties.
It had been hoped to sail the 176-ft vessel, a replica of a Famine emigrant ship which left Ireland in the 1840s, to Boston in March last year. The voyage was cancelled but construction is to be resumed so that the ship can be fitted out and moored in New Ross as a permanent tourist attraction.
The Minister of State for the Marine, Mr Hugh Byrne, said "all the pieces are now in place" to enable the Government to assist with the completion of the ship, following discussions between his Department and the board of the John F. Kennedy Trust, the project's promoters.
A financial controller is to be appointed to oversee the Government financing element, while the board of the JFK trust has been reconstituted under the chairmanship of Mr Pat O'Neill.
A consultancy report presented to Cabinet last year estimated it would cost a further £1.7 million in State support to complete the project; at that time, however, the voyage to Boston was still in prospect. About £3 million in EU, State and other funding had already been spent on the vessel, which has attracted more than 80,000 visitors since the construction site was opened to the public in June 1997.
The original Dunbrody was built in Quebec in 1845 for the prosperous Graves family of New Ross. It had a crew of 14 and could carry 176 passengers.