Mr. Howard Knott:

I will deal with some of the remaining points. One of the useful items in the draft is the facility where a particular business opportunity arises and with that opportunity comes the potential of investment by a third party to facilitate it. The new port companies operating within the council can consider that opportunity, so it can become part of the port going forward. This would allow the smaller regional ports, which will not be single-business focused but will probably be focused on a relatively small number of businesses, to become real specialists in a particular area. The history of a great number of ports outside Ireland is that they become experts in handling, say, equipment for wind farms, which is outside the normal run of things. Why not get the wind farm people to put in the money? I would not get hung up on the point that if a regional port is in this new environment, it is necessarily totally unable to secure funding.

Another issue arises from the various comments around the table. One of the things we mentioned in our submission is that the IEA has become involved over the years in a number of EU-supported logistics-focused projects, whether that is west-east across Europe or along the Atlantic arc. In doing so, one interacts with people from ports elsewhere. It is instructive that the European model supports can be quite different from what we have in Ireland, and the Irish model can be quite different from what they have in Britain. Before the Bill is finalised, it probably behoves the powers that be to consider whether we are missing something here. For example, are we looking at the way municipal governance operates in a port like Rotterdam? While that may sound ridiculous, governance there is very much controlled by and under the authority of the local government. It is not necessarily only a small issue.

Deputy Ó Cuív mentioned the dangers of the focus on Dublin and this is something we would like to come back to in due course. There is a consultation process ongoing under the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport at the moment about infrastructure investment for transport over the next 40 years. On a fairly quick reading of that, it would seem it has a very strong focus towards transport to and from Dublin and less of a focus on transport elsewhere. If these regional ports, about which we are all concerned, are to really thrive, they must have good road and rail infrastructure into those ports so they can serve their communities.

We must ensure that we treat the ports discussion on an all-island basis. The ports of Northern Ireland are just as important to Irish exporters and importers as those that are domiciled in the republic. Again, the lessons of the ports there should be taken on board.

On a point that addresses some of the issues raised in the ports policy document, there is a provision that the Irish Maritime Development Office, which is now related to the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport, should have an oversight function regarding the competitiveness of each and every port and how they are doing in an international league table. This is very important and might answer some of the worries.