Mr. ?anna Rowe:

We have a very small number of serviced facilities available. We have 20 in Grand Canal Basin, 12 in Sallins and eight in Shannon Harbour. In Shannon Harbour the serviced sites are all full and there is a waiting list. People pay a fee of €1,500 per annum for a serviced houseboat site in that rural location. In the suburban locations, which include Sallins, we propose to bring in a fee of €2,000 for a serviced site and €1,000 for an unserviced site. In Dublin, our proposal is to start with a fee of €4,000, rising to €7,500. We also have an extensive waiting list for Dublin, which runs to more than 270 boats seeking to gain access to Dublin.

We also have a plan of investment in new services. Ideally, we want to get to a level where we have 200 serviced sites for houseboats across the two navigations.