Oceanworld’s future on thin ice

MARA Beo Dingle Oceanworld is facing a battle to reach its 25th anniversary in 2021 unless state support is forthcoming, as COVID restrictions have played havoc with one of Kerry’s most important tourism, animal conservation, and educational assets.

Since opening in 1996, it has become home to exotic species from across the globe – but this requires considerable financial clout, General Manager Máire Treasa O’Shea explained to The Kerryman. A 16-week closure saw its doors shut to the public ahead of Saint Patrick’s Day, Easter, and primetime for school tours, leading to the aquarium losing out on some €300,000 – a disastrous blow for a facility that needs €65,000 a month to run.

While far from being the only private company in dire straits at the moment, Máire Treasa acknowledged, its value to the public makes it worthy of state support – with no chance of clawing back losses over the summer months due to the restrictions in place since it re-opened last week.

“Day one, we started off with local species, and we’ve been adding through the years. We’ve sand tiger sharks, gentoo penguins, asian otters, reptiles, tropical species of fish, for example,” she told The Kerryman. “Our running costs are almost a million a year. To give you an example, our electricity is over €100,000 every year. You’ve your cooling tanks, heating tanks, ice for the penguins, heating for the reptiles. You’ve insurance, you’ve big vet costs, and staff costs – it all mounts up.

“We’re down to about 20 staff members at the moment, we’d normally be up to around 40 in the summertime. On a normal day, you’d have 1,50001,600 visitors, whereas now it’s 500 maximum.

“Even when we were closed, we couldn’t just walk away. There were staff minding the animals, and the overheads stayed static... This year we can take a hit, but if social distancing continues, it won’t be viable. Our problem really is next year, especially if the wage-subsidy scheme closes in the autumn. That helped a lot, but even then a lot of our staff wouldn’t have been working in February and March, so our seasonal staff aren’t on wage subsidy.”

While the aquarium would normally welcome some 100,000 visitors a year, 50,000 would be considered a success in 2020. The facility has benefited from Kerry County Council’s rates suspension and a €10,000 re-start grant – but much of that grant has gone on preparing the aquarium for COVID times.

There is no government support currently available to Oceanworld, Máire Treasa explained, but its value to the county and indeed the country merits backing, she said.

“For tourism in the county, not just Dingle, it’s one of the biggest visitor attractions we have. We’re one of the few attractions here open year-round, and you’d be talking about losing up to 20 full-time jobs and 20 seasonal jobs – a big blow to a small town.

“On the animal side, the amount of conservation work we do – for example, our work with the natterjack toad, re-homing reptiles, our lobster hatcheries, loggerhead turtles – is huge. We do a lot of educational work, too – such as beach cleans, school tours, etcetera.

“All that’s available is loans, and they’re no good. You’re only digging a hole for yourself...We’d need a few hundred thousand to keep us going. Aquariums in the UK got £100,000 from the government, and there are only three aquariums in Ireland.

“As I say, 2021 is going to be the big problem for us.”

FOR TOURISM IN THE COUNTY, NOT JUST DINGLE, IT’S ONE OF THE BIGGEST VISITOR ATTRACTIONS WE HAVE.

Photo by Domnick Walsh Dingle Oceanworld staff Ciara O’Halloran at work with the penguins. The director of Ireland’s largest aquarium based in Dingle fears they may have to shut their doors without a State rescue package to help to pay the huge power bills to run their giant tanks at Dingle Oceanworld aquarium.