An island with just two full-time residents is to be turned into a tourist destination with up to 80,000 visitors a year under proposals submitted to An Bord Pleanála.

Dursey Island which is accessed by the country’s only cable car would also get its first public toilets and communal shelter under the plan.

Cork County Council says the development is vital to save the island from becoming completely depopulated and because the cable car no longer meets safety requirements and is operating under exemption from regulations.

But environmentalists fear it will damage the landscape and devastate vulnerable bird life.

Members of the public have until next Friday to make submissions on the plan and its 1,000 pages of environmental impact assessments.

Dursey lies off the Beara Peninsula in west Cork, separated from the mainland by a narrow but treacherous sound. Accessing the island by boat is difficult and 50 years ago the residents’ lives were transformed by the construction of the single-carriage, six-seater cable car still in use today.

Under the council’s €7m development plan, that would be replaced by a state-of-the-art two-way cable car system capable of carrying up to 300 people each way every hour.

A restaurant, gift shop, visitor centre and 100-space car park are all planned for the mainland while toilets, shelters and other basic facilities would be built on the island.

Although the planning documents say the cable car would not be used at full capacity, and would run more slowly than necessary to allow visitors time to enjoy the views, environmentalists say they fear demand could dictate that it is run to its limits, pushing numbers above 80,000.

Rosarie O’Neill, who was born on the island and now runs a bed and breakfast on the mainland while letting out her Dursey home to tourists, said, however, that 20,000 were already making their way to the island and the existing service could not cope.

“If we don’t do something, we’ll lose the cable car altogether and Dursey will as good as disappear because nobody will get to it,” she said.

Ms O’Neill runs a mobile coffee shop during the summer and leaves her house open to let people use her toilet.

“Nobody ever gives a bit of trouble. They’re very respectful of the island and I don’t see why that would change. They come because they love nature, not to harm it.”

But Tony Lowes of Friends of the Irish Environment said the development could wipe out the island’s struggling population of chough birds which has already lost a third of its numbers in the past 20 years.

“The only thing that changed on the island in those 20 years is tourism,” he said. “We can’t claim to value our wilderness areas and then open them up to what effectively will be mass tourism,” he said.

“The cable car could be replaced and Dursey kept as a niche tourist attraction with pre-booking and limits on numbers. It works for the Skelligs and the excitement of visitors who have waited for that experience makes it all the more special.”

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