Mr. Liam Lacey:

On Deputy Pringle's question on the role of the IMDO in port transport shipping, we are required to deliver policy advice to the Department and the Minister in those areas. We are involved in business development both at the national and international level. Ireland has a very fine indigenous shipping industry, and companies such as Irish Ferries, Arklow Shipping and Mainport are on the move and expanding. We very much encourage that.

On the international shipping scene, Ireland has opportunities to encourage shipping companies to trade within Irish waters to deliver the services required to maintain our trading links with the rest of the world and also to come to Ireland to take advantage of Ireland's tonnage tax regime which requires such companies to create an organisation here in this country which creates employment. We are also involved in training, as Dr. Heffernan said, through the National Maritime College in Cork. We sit on the advisory board of that and we support the training of cadets in shipping companies through the provision of funding for their training. We are also involved in the development of our ports and work very closely with the Department to understand and predicate the requirement for increased capacity in our ports as the economy of the country grows. Those two things are very closely correlated, so it is important for us to have a clear view about when additional capacity needs to be delivered at our ports because of the very long lead times involved in that.