Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I was going to wait until we got to Schedule 1 but I understand the issue of Galway has already been raised under section 8. Two issues arise, the first of which is that nobody in the west, including Galway, wants a change to the status of the port. In fact, the people of Galway have very ambitious plans for the port. Nobody in the region has requested that there be a facility to transfer responsibility either to the CEO or the local authority. What is the thinking behind the inclusion in the Bill? I accept that the word "may" is used but I wish to know the thinking in the Department on including a provision in the legislation when nobody wants in included therein.

The second issue is that there is a habit of what I call "status quoism". In other words, we are perpetuating into the future what occurred in the past, largely for physical reasons, by slamming the door and saying that the future has to be a mirror image of the past. The reason Galway Harbour was not developed is very simple. It is a tidal harbour with a gate on it and the time in which one can get in and out is very constrained. The harbour is very small. It is a bit like going to an airport that can take only very small aeroplanes. Although one might wonder why jumbo jets are not flown into it, one must ask how it could be done. One might wonder why one could not fly Boeing 747 aircraft into it. This was the principle that the late Monsignor Horan understood when he was being offered by the Department the Minister now heads the famous Aer Arann strip in Knock. My colleague, who lives much nearer to it than I do, would understand that the strip offered, an Aer Arann strip, would have taken a seven-seater aeroplane. By God, Monsignor Horan must be up in heaven laughing at the Department. There are nearly 1 million passengers in Knock now and they are not flying there in Aer Arann aeroplanes. Why is the provision included in Schedule 1 to the Bill, which is facilitated by section 8?

I understand the Minister said that, in light of the position on TEN-T funding and tier-2 status, it is laid down by the European authorities that he has no function in the matter and that the decision is based on historic tonnages. That is interesting because there was a proposal at one stage to move the port in Dublin up the coast away from the city. If we were to do that, would it be excluded from TEN-T funding although it would have an historic tonnage of zero? I am sure a way of funding the port would be found. I am sure there would be a way of getting around the issue.

In more recent times the port in Limerick moved to Foynes, the main port in the region. Could the Minister get his officials to send me the links to where it is stated tier-2 status cannot be granted on the basis of a port's future ability as opposed to historic records? If we have allowed the European Union to become so blind as to predicate the future on the past, there is a serious question to be answered by our MEPs collectively and various Ministers over the years, including those in Governments in which I served. Nothing should be allowed to be done on the basis of historic constraints that could be overcome in the future; otherwise the least-developed areas will stay least developed. Does the Minister realise what his Department is doing? There is a policy in the Department to build everything based on the past.

A trend in recent Government decisions is that we are putting everything on the east coast. Being from the city of Dublin and having grown up very near to the port of Dublin, my problem with that trend is that the Minister is destroying Dublin for the people who live there. The policy of putting everything in the city is leaving so many people unable to afford to buy a house. People have to go down the country, to Carlow or elsewhere, to try to get a house in which to live. In fact, we are experiencing what I used to describe as the melting ice cream effect of the so-called greater Dublin area, GDA. All one has to do is check the commuter trains from Athlone, Tullamore, Longford, etc., to discover the effect of the policy. We are forcing people to live in one place and work in another because all the jobs that could be distributed around the country are being created in the city. By putting all the infrastructure in the city, one is doing the same thing. It is not to the benefit of the city. When I used to travel out of town for three miles to school in Mount Merrion, we were nearly in the countryside.

Now, one would want to go down towards Bray or way up to Enniskerry to get to the countryside. Every year that passes, more efforts are made to gobble up more of the land around Dublin, either the scenic land to the south and up towards the hills or the most fertile land in the country to the north of the county. It is important to record it here.

What we are winding up with is State companies in Dublin, Rosslare, Waterford, Cork and Foynes. Foynes is actually nearer to Cork Port than it is to Galway by road. The Minister is saying that from Foynes Port - which is on the southern side of the Shannon and not only in Munster but actually in Limerick, not Clare - all the way around the coast to Derry city, there will be no port. That is notwithstanding the fact that a great deal of the indigenous raw material one might want to export comes from the west coast. Lime is being exported from very near to where I live. It is very high quality and makes very significant money. Timber has been exported and we import oil directly into Galway.

Could the Minister arrange for me to be given the link on the criteria for these tier 2 ports? I suggest that the Minister delete Galway from the Bill in the meantime while we go to our MEPs and get this sorted out. We must get this total injustice that has been done at European level put right. In the meantime, and in anticipation of the matter being put right, however long that takes, everybody in the west wants this company kept as a State company. I hope the Minister will therefore tell us that he will table an amendment on Report Stage deleting Galway Harbour Company from Schedule 1 of the Bill and that he will accept the status quountil we correct this total injustice in European law that the Minister tells us is there and precludes us from getting TEN-Ts.

I know and the Minister knows what is going on in the Department. All the ports transferring to local authorities will wither and die as commercial ports and become recreational ports and minor facilities. They will not be serious ports on a national scale. By the very definition, they will no longer be national ports. We want a national port on the west coast and we will insist on getting it. There is unanimity among all Oireachtas Members who represent or aspire to represent west Galway, including Deputy O'Mahony, who is joining us there, that we do not want the status of Galway Port changed. If there is a block or barrier in EU law to tier 2 status, we want that changed at EU level rather than to have the Minister cement an asinine decision or provision of European law.