Located less than 500 metres away from Seaview where rock armour is being installed to protect some 14 houses from coastal erosion, Ballyhealy is home to the Fortune family, potato farmers who have worked this land for generations. <\/p>\n
In an effort to keep out the sea and protect both his land and the family home, Chris Fortune has spent over \u20ac100,000 installing a land bank on the edge of his property. Thus far, it has kept the sea at bay, but every winter that bank is whittled down by encroaching waters and the Fortune family is now seeking assistance from national government. <\/p>\n
At the April meeting of Wexford County Council (WCC), Councillor Frank Staples asked whether there was any hope of funding being allocated towards coastal protection works in Ballyhealy.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s a dire situation there and a local business is in serious trouble, once the water gets in it won\u2019t be coming out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n
The news from the top table offered some hope for the Fortune family and neighbouring couple Willie and Lal Pierce.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have started the process on this, the consultants are doing a report and we are working as hard as we can to ensure it meets the cost-benefit analysis threshold,\u201d said director of services Eamonn Hore. <\/p>\n
Further good news arrived at the monthly meeting of the Rosslare Municipal District (RMD) two days later where cathaoirleach Cllr Ger Carthy confirmed he had been in contact with the minister responsible for loosening the purse strings on coastal erosion projects. <\/p>\n
\u201cMinister Boxer Moran rang me two weeks ago and has committed to come to Ballyhealy to have a look at the situation there,\u201d said Cllr Carthy. \u201cThere\u2019s an opportunity to solve a very significant coastal erosion problem here, I have every confidence Minister Moran will support the people of Ballyhealy. I just hope we\u2019re not going to be subsumed with bureaucracy on this, there\u2019s lives at stake here, properties and businesses too.\u201d<\/p>\n
Cllr Jim Codd had recently visited Ballyhealy and was shocked at how much land has been lost to the sea.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn the last ten years there\u2019s been more erosion than there has been for generations, we\u2019re talking hundreds of yards, entire fields, gone. There\u2019s a gateway there which just leads out to the sea, people used to be able to drive through it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Although it appeared as if works at Ballyhealy may soon commence, Cllr Aoife Rose O\u2019Brien said the pace of delivery was far too slow for those directly affected. <\/p>\n
\u201cEverything seems to take so long, there\u2019s so much bureaucracy involved, so much red tape,\u201d she said. \u201cToo many people are on big pay cheques and the work isn\u2019t getting done.\u201d<\/p>\n
Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Located less than 500 metres away from Seaview where rock armour is being installed to protect some 14…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":419791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[246,61,60,82,920],"class_list":["post-419790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-environment","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-science","tag-simon-bourke"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=419790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/419790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/419791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=419790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=419790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=419790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}