Mr. Richard Shakespeare:

We established a cruise stakeholders group made up of all local stakeholders - the council, business leaders and the harbour - and we have been investigating this over the past five or six years to the point where next year we will have 24 cruise calls of large vessels into Dún Laoghaire, most of which cannot fit into Dublin Port and need to anchor in the bay in Dún Laoghaire.

The reason for the extension of the limits is that there is a duplication of work going on between Dublin Port and the Harbour Master in Dún Laoghaire in that both are monitoring the same vessel. We anticipate 24 cruise calls next year when in excess of 100,000 passengers and crew will come ashore through Dún Laoghaire. Some of them will stay in Dún Laoghaire but it is a regional benefit. We are trying to proof the business case we have been working on and the economic model to see if it can sustain the development of a cruise berth.