Mr. Des Whelan:

How long is a piece of string? People are very concerned about this issue, particularly in the tourism industry. We have about 25 cruise liners coming in to Waterford every year. The liners that are 200 m long can come up as far as Belview Port. They account for about ten of the 25. Three or four can go the whole way up the river into the quays at Waterford. The others, the very large ones with 2,000 or 3,000 passengers on board, dock off Dunmore East. They are then tendered into the harbour in Dunmore East, weather permitting. Quite a number of the cruise liner passengers are elderly, in the 50 plus bracket. One cannot always take that number of people on to a tender.

This week, for example, we turned away a very large cruiser because it was not suitable to take people off. To put a cruise facility in Dunmore East would be a multimillion euro investment. That is the reality of it. We are vulnerable to the weather for those ten or 15 cruise liners, that is, the very large ones. The other cruise liners can go up to Great Island or to Belview Port but we are restricted unless a massive amount of money is put into the infrastructure to cater for the very large cruise liners at Dunmore East, or something along that estuary, between there and Woodstown. Mr. Doyle is a harbourmaster and is far more used to dealing with the problems of cruise liners but it is important to say that we welcome them and would like more of them. The infrastructure and what we can offer, however, is a problem.