The Wicklow Fine Gael TD, Mr Billy Timmins, has called on the Government to relocate the Jeanie Johnston famine ship from Kerry to Arklow, in his constituency.
Arklow has the ship-building expertise to finish the project, Mr Timmins said, and he had suggested this to the Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey, last July. It now represented "the only solution to this entire fiasco", Mr Timmins said.
The ship is near completion, but is impounded due to non-payment of creditors and has been the subject of a political row because its cost is three times the original estimate, now at €14.35million, and has overrun by 18 months on its schedule completion date.
A report for the Minister also failed to identify a long-term use for the vessel which would not involve more expenditure. Three options are being considered, but the Minister says he favours a structured winding down of the project.
Mr Timmins says when he made the bid for Arklow - which is home to the Tyrell shipyard, builders of the Asgard II training vessel, and Arklow Shipping - he was told the project would be finished "in a matter of weeks".
"This is obviously not the case and I'm now calling on the Government to cut their losses and bring the project to Arklow where it will be completed properly," Mr Timmins maintains. "Experts say that if the Jeanie Johnston had been built in a commercial shipyard, the overall cost of the project would have been much lower.
"The only answer to this sorry mess is to transfer the project to the town of Arklow," he said.
