Mr. Pat Mangan:

I would like to comment on Deputy Boyd Barrett's earlier remarks.

I agree wholeheartedly with him that a port and a harbour involves much more than the shipping of goods. It is an amenity facility and often a very important part of the heritage. Dún Laoghaire is a very good example of that and it is important that the transfer to local authorities allows the opportunity to consider the development of the port area in a much more holistic way than might have been possible to date, given that there have been separate entities.

Nonetheless, my concern is in regard to ports, shipping, transport and so on. If these ports are not able to operate commercially in that part of their business, they will simply sink without trace. As I said earlier, they are competing with big beasts who have much deeper pockets and are becoming increasingly dominant in the market, and they must be enabled to compete in that market. That is not to take away from the other functions they have and finding ways of carrying out those functions but, ultimately, they start off as a harbour that moves goods through and back. If they are not able to do that competitively, and if they are not able to offer the services that are required by shippers and freight forwarders, they will disappear. That has to be one of the factors. The challenge for the local authorities is how to develop all the aspects of a harbour while ensuring they continue to operate commercially as transport entities.