Visitor capacity at the cliff edge at the Cliffs of Moher already operates at over-capacity and this situation will worsen if Clare County Council's €15 million visitor centre proposal for the cliffs proceeds, it was alleged yesterday.
At the end of a three-day Bord Pleanála oral hearing in Ennis, Mr Simon Clear, a planning consultant, claimed there was a link between unsafe behaviour at the cliff edge and the decrease in space for visitors at the site. Making the closing argument on behalf of appellants and former partners in the project, Shannon Development, Mr Clear described the council proposal "as an inflexible response to a dynamic situation and is not founded on adequate baseline information".
During the hearing, Shannon Development put forward an alternative of removing the existing car-park and putting in place a park-and-ride scheme.
However, its proposal earned a stiff rebuke from the council's solicitor, Mr Michael Houlihan: "If the objectors have their way, in one fell swoop they will totally disrupt the long-established pattern from which hotels, guest houses, restaurants and other tourist facilities have been established".
A former chairman of Shannon Development, Mr Houlihan said the council is committed to the provision of on-site, all-weather facilities to enhance visitor experience of the area.
Earlier, the chairman of the Liscannor Development Co Ltd, Mr Michael Healy, told the hearing his association is disappointed that the centre is the subject of a dispute between two public bodies and that such a dispute is being conducted at the expense of the taxpayer.
Outlining his support for the proposal, Mr Healy said: "Our young people have been forced to leave because of lack of employment and we see the proposed visitor centre providing badly needed permanent employment".
