Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees
Wednesday, 11 November 2015
Committee on Transport and Communications: Select Sub-Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport
Harbours Bill 2015: Committee Stage
11:00 am
Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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We genuinely seem to be at cross purposes because I cannot underline strongly enough that what I am proposing - it is very clear in the wording - is vesting power in the elected members. The amendment includes the words “in consultation with”. That is what I am proposing. The Bill, largely but not exclusively, gives decision-making power to the manager, not the elected members.
I propose to replace the references to the manager with the words "Elected Council in consultation with Stakeholder and Community Group". It is clear, therefore, what I am proposing. If the Minister wants to argue that this needs to be worded carefully or that he likes the thrust of what I am saying but that we need to think about using words such as "bona fide" and so on, the people in Dún Laoghaire and I are open to this. The thrust of the argument is that we do not want power to be vested largely or exclusively in the hands of the unelected CEO and we do not want power to continue to be vested in the CEO and the board of the harbour company which is unaccountable to anybody.