By Diarmaid Doherty
A small Donegal island has been cut off to some of its residents because emergency repairs are needed to the steps of the island’s pier.
Inis Meáin, which lies just off Port Arthur in Gaoth Dobhair, is a summer-only inhabited island but it’s claimed some of its residents are being excluded from getting to their homes.
Local councillor Micheál Choilm mac Giolla Easbaig said funding is needed to carry out much needed improvements to the steps on the pier which are no longer safe.
He said the only other access to the pier is via a ladder – something that can’t be used by everyone.
“By not having proper access to the island it excludes people of a certain age or ability to get on to their island and get to their homes,” he said.
“Not everybody is able to come off a boat and go up a ladder.”
The vast majority of the island’s residents live on the mainland during the winter months, returning in the better weather from March/April on.
Cllr. Mac Giolla Easbaig said that arrangement hasn’t helped the island’s chances of receiving funding from the Department of Rural and Community Development because it’s considered uninhabited.
“At our recent meeting of the Disability Committee of Donegal County Council I asked that we would write as a council to the Minister to give us emergency funding to put in access so that people can get to their homes,” he said.
“For some time now I have been back and forth to the council and to the department but there has been no funding forthcoming.
“The idea that people can’t access their own homes due to the fact that it’s dangerous to use the steps that are there now is not acceptable.
“It’s neglecting an island community that has been neglected for years anyway. They have been forced off their homeland by government policy.”
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