The issue of providing a permanent home for the Irish Seal Sanctuary was originally proposed for Balbriggan was raised this week in the Dáil by Clare Daly. The proposal intended to bring together the Sanctuary and a Maritime museum for the town has been continuously put on the long finger by the County Council.
The Irish Seal Sanctuary has been in operation for 30 years and in that time has rescued and rehabilitated over 1,000 seals with an 80% success rate. The grey seal is the world’s first protected species with a population of around 8,000 around the Irish coast. The population has increased over the 30 years and their health is vastly improved thanks to the voluntary work of the Irish Seal Sanctuary.
At the moment the Seal Sanctuary is homeless and is relying on foster facilities and the support of volunteers and the use of family homes to rehabilitate the seals. They need a centralised home to co-ordinate their efforts.
The people and expertise exists for a potential industry in eco-tourism.
The sanctuary often has crowds of hundreds to thousands of people on the beaches when they are releasing rehabilitated seals back into the sea. The interest from the communities is beyond doubt. 500 people turned up on New Year’s morning to see the return of two seals at Sandymount beach this year.
When they had a temporary home in Courtown the Sanctuary was in a position to provide full time jobs and catered for a number of foreign students who spent 3 to 6 months in the town learning about the grey seal and other aspects of Irish marine life.
The volunteer workers network is an important source of information to the state because of the vast amount of data they collect on the seal population and on many other aspects of marine life.
The need for a not for profit sanctuary is evident.
The spin offs can be seen in places like Dingle which attracts a significant amount of tourists due to the presence of a healthy seal population sustained by volunteers on a not for profit basis.
Balbriggan could be developing niche tourism for the town with a shared facility for both the Sanctuary and the Maritime museum. There is no fisheries museum in the country this potentially could revitalise the town and provide an educational facility, archive vital information, display artefacts in a central location, promote the welfare of marine life and be a location for eco-tourism.
The minister on his launching of the one day pop up museum last year attended by over 1,000 people was very supportive of the idea and so was the county manager David O’Connor. But it has not been pursued since then.
If a one day event attracted such interest then the next step should be to attempt a longer term museum even if it was still a pop up one with the input of the community it could provide the footfall and potentially gather momentum this would be a proactive step to a long term arrangement which would be of huge benefit to the town.
The Minister in his reply to Deputy Daly’s question indicated that he also fells that it is a good project and ought to be pursued by the County Council in conjunction with the local community.
The link to the video is here: