Tourism office to go ahead at ‘wrong’ site

March 1980

Plans to build South East Tourism’s new Rosslare Harbour on the ‘wrong’ site, more than a mile from the ferry terminal, are to go ahead, despite strong opposition from local hoteliers and guesthouse owners.

‘ The new tourist information office WILL be built on the two-thirds acre site at Kilrane,’ SET Manager, Mr Bill Walsh, confirmed on Tuesday.

‘After consultation with the people who bring in the tourists, and a broad study of office locations in Britain and on the Continent, it is our view that the Kilrane site is the most suitable available,’ Mr Walsh added.

There has been condemnation of the move from Rosslare Harbour, and feelings ran high at a special meeting of hoteliers and other business interests last Thursday, where the Kilrane site was condemned as ‘just plain wrong’.

One hotelier claimed that 40 per cent of his business was derived from incoming traffic and said he now stood to lose that.

Mr Henry Reid of the 100-bedroom Great Southern Hotel said that if motorists had to drive a mile or more from the ferry to find a tourist office to inquire about hotel accommodation, they would not turn back to go back to his hotel, but would instead continue moving on.

The SET decision was also described as ‘arbitrary’ and ‘outrageous’ by another hotelier, Mr Liam Griffin.

But on Tuesday, Mr Walsh defended the decision to choose Kilrane. He said the decision had the full backing of the SET Board of Directors, and he claimed he had also received many messages of support from business people in the area.

He added that the current tourism office at Rosslare Harbour is ‘ totally inadequate’ as it has to share a small premises with a car rental firm and also with the Students Union of Ireland, who provide information to students coming to Ireland to work or learn.