Dr. Joseph Hiney:

First of all, I do not believe I am in a position to give such a commitment from the point of view of the Harbours Act, as it sets out particular conditions in terms of who can be on the board. Perhaps I have misunderstood the Deputy's question. Anything is possible in terms of more informal consultation. Certainly, stage one of our process is to work out not just who we need to communicate with but how. One can hold workshops and nice evenings in hotels but the question is how we can hold productive meetings in a real and pragmatic fashion. That is where the challenge is. A huge part of it is listening. One needs to create a forum in a structured manner in order to hear the different views. It has been done quite successfully by other ports in this country. In the context of its development, Dublin Port held quite an extensive and wide ranging consultation. It is much larger than Drogheda and has greater resources to do that but in our own way we want to do the same thing. We want to communicate. The shares will transfer from the Minister to Louth County Council at some point and the shareholder under the Act is the chief executive of Louth County Council. We are working with the council on how that governance structure will evolve in terms of liaison and communication. We are proscribed in what we can do under harbour legislation so some of those questions relate to Louth County Council and how it will do it.