Mr. Glenn Carr:

What I can assure everybody, as we got legal advice on this, is that it would never have inhibited investment into the port. I cannot comment on the reasons before, but in the past five to seven years we have seen a total transformation in it.

The reality is that the original Fishguard & Rosslare Railways & Harbours Company pertains to the original piece of infrastructure that was in the original port back in the 1890s. Ever since then, in terms of any of the development that happened, the licence and ownership of the land came under CIÉ and therefore the State. Any future developments or investment in Rosslare Europort fully belongs to the Irish State. Likewise, on the Fishguard side, we have no call on Fishguard, which is run by Stena Line. There is a technical matter that involves the original formation of the harbour company, which does today sit on the London Stock Exchange, but it does only involve that section of the port which is not involved in any of the upgrades or master plans that we are seeing today. The border control post that is being built at terminal 7 is being accessed through the Brexit resilience fund. We addressed that issue there. We have also assured the Department based on the legal advice that we have received that any investment into the ORE facility will be 100% part of the State.