Mr. Lorcan O'Connor:

The port is a piece of major infrastructure for the whole of Ireland. From what we have seen, there is plenty of freight capacity at the other ports. To some degree, however, Dublin Port feels that it can suck in all of that more profitable freight business. It is setting up a cost-benefit analysis on a cruise terminal that will cost €100 million. It states that it makes €2 million per year on a season that is relatively short, lasting only a couple of months. The cost-benefit analysis is set up to fail. It is never going to show that Dublin Port Company should build a port terminal. Dublin Port has sought central government funding for this infrastructure, but there is an idea that the report will be considered once it is published. We are being told that there will be cruise business for two years, it will decline for two years while the works are under way and it will then be grown again. If so, why then would the company leave Cruise Ireland, Cruise Europe and the other cruise groups and close its social media accounts? The company has stated that there will be no turnarounds after 2021. In the briefing document supplied, the Minister was vague. Terms such as "We might", "We will" and "We would like to" are used. Those are the kinds of answer we are getting. We would love to get Mr. Eamonn O'Reilly into a committee meeting like this so that people could ask him hard questions, including about his intentions. Everything is always "We might need" or-----