Fáilte Ireland letter on Mayo tourism project is ‘embarrassing’

A letter from Fáilte Ireland about funding for the Céide Coastal Walk has been branded “embarrassing” by a councillor who wants a strongly worded response sent to the tourism body’s CEO.

Cllr Michael Loftus criticised the correspondence at the October meeting of the Ballina Municipal District, saying it provided no clear information on when a capital funding programme would be available to support the project. He called for an “extremely strong-worded” letter to be sent to the CEO of Fáilte Ireland, questioning why the funding programme was still not in place.

Cllr Loftus said those responsible had been “sitting on their hands for so long” on the project, which aims to develop a 15km coastal walk from Downpatrick Head to the Céide Fields, and which Fáilte Ireland has listed as a catalyst project for North Mayo under its five-year tourism development plan.

The letter in question, from Luke Murray, Fáilte Ireland’s Team Manager for Mayo, Sligo and the Wild Atlantic Way, came in response to a motion passed by the municipal district asking for a timeline for funding approval for the proposed walk.

Mr Murray told the council that “Fáilte Ireland does not have an active funding application before it in respect of the Coastal Path and there is currently no open Fáilte Ireland funding stream through which an application for the project can be considered”.

The Fianna Fáil councillor said the organisation is currently developing a new capital investment plan, with hopes that funding schemes from the plan will be advertised on the Fáilte Ireland website once they are open. As the scheme is currently being developed, Mr Murray said it would not be possible to comment on the eligibility of individual projects at this stage.

Cllr Loftus described the response as “embarrassing” and an “AI letter”, saying it gives the council no information on capital funding and warned that it “needs to be addressed sooner rather than later”.

However, Cllr Jarlath Munnelly urged caution, warning that criticism of Fáilte Ireland could be counterproductive.

“We need to be supportive and positive. I don’t like the criticism because it could be interpreted by people who work for Fáilte Ireland who will have a say on this [project],” he said.

Cllr Munnelly explained the campaign for the Céide Coastal Walk had been ongoing for a decade and that councillors needed to be careful not to sound too negative about the project’s prospects.

The Fine Gael councillor pointed to the North Mayo Tourism Development Plan, saying the initiatives within it that had been “just talk a couple of years ago” were now included in a national policy scheme and in direct line for funding. He also referred to the €710m in capital funding allocated to Enterprise, Tourism and Employment in Budget 2027.

Cllr Munnelly suggested that a meeting with Fáilte Ireland would be more constructive than sending a strongly worded letter, and that the council could write to the Minister for Enterprise, Tourism and Employment, Peter Burke instead.

“We can write to the Minister and ask him when the money is going to come, but I do not want to criticise Fáilte Ireland locally,” he said. “We need to keep the positivity about the project going because it is going to be really good.

“Yes, it will need an injection of money, but if this money came a year or two years ago we would’ve missed the boat because we did not have the [National Plan] in place,” he said.

Cllr Loftus reiterated that Fáilte Ireland committed in 2025 to bringing forward a capital funding programme, but said it is now the end of 2026 and such a programme is still not in place.

He said the previous CEO of Fáilte Ireland made the commitment and questioned whether the current CEO shared the same vision.

“My concern is that the change of leadership is stopping the actual funding coming to our area."

Cllr Loftus stressed that local staff at Fáilte Ireland were doing good work, but said the failure to secure capital funding for the area was “beyond their pay grade”.

• Published as part of the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.