Untreated sewage pumped into Sligo harbour at a rate of 40 tonnes a day is threatening the future of the port, the Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, will be told when he meets members of the harbour board on a visit to Sligo today.
The build-up of deposits in the channel into the harbour is so bad it has now forced Mr Edmund Bruen, the harbourmaster, to reduce the size of ships that can dock.
"To keep the port open dredging is now a priority, but we don't have the money," Mr Bruen said. Until recently the port was able to take ships of 3,500 tonnes, but that has now been reduced to 2,800.
The knock-on effect is that it is becoming less economically viable for importers to use the port. It has already declined considerably and if these trends continue its future as a commercial port appears bleak.
A total of just 22 ships per year now dock at Sligo harbour. This compares to 30 years ago when ships queued up in the bay and an average of three or four entered on each high tide, Mr Bruen said.
He said he believed the amount of untreated sewage pumped into the harbour was a major cause of the problem. Work is to start next year on a sewage treatment plant required under EU legislation and to be paid for by the EU.
Sligo's sewage has always been pumped directly into the harbour. Mr Bruen said an engineer employed by the port calculated that 40 tonnes of liquid sewage was going in daily. A spokesman for Sligo Corporation estimated, based on population figures, that just one tonne of solid sewage waste was going into the harbour per day.
He said the corporation did not believe there was any pollution risk because it was quickly diluted and salt water killed bacteria.
A Labour member of Sligo County Council, Mr Brian Scanlon, who is also on the harbour board, said he would be asking Mr Ahern to provide financial support to help pay for dredging. "The cost is £1.5 million, but in the current financial climate that is nothing, and it is needed to save the port," Mr Scanlon said.
Mr Bruen said he believed the port had great potential to help the economic development of the town, but investment was urgently needed for dredging, to repair the training wall and for dry storage facilities.
He said he feared that businesses now using the port to import coal, timber and fishmeal would switch to using larger ports in Derry or Belfast and then transport the goods across land.
There is also uncertainty as to whether the county council is to take over responsibility for the port as proposed by the last minister for the marine.
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