Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

Ports form a vital part of the economy and society. Some 99% of our total trade imports and exports go through national ports. Mariners in my home port of Howth and the ports I visited as spokesperson on this subject, from Greencastle to Castletownbere, use the phrase, "If you bought it, a ship brought it". The critical nature of ports to the Irish economy is self-evident. In 2005 a ports policy statement was released by the Fianna Fáil and Progressive Democrats Government. I welcome the focus on the ports, which had been disgracefully neglected in policy development, particularly in the past 12 years.

However, there are still worrying questions about the 2005 policy document and whether its key underlying agenda was for a privatisation of the network of national ports. The Harbours (Amendment) Bill has been brought forward to give effect to the ports policy statement of 2005. Why has it taken so long to produce this Bill from the 2005 document? The unacceptable slowness in this legislation, which has meandered for the past 10 months since it was launched on a bank holiday weekend, is typical of the lethargy of the Government over the past 12 years.

I welcome aspects of the Bill with regard to strengthening commercial facilities at our national ports but it lacks ambition and is not thorough enough. We clearly need to facilitate our ports to be as dynamic and strong as possible given their massive commercial mandate but major issues of port governance remain. There have been outrageous episodes at Dublin and Shannon Foynes ports that have never been transparently and publicly addressed. As the objective of the Bill is to strengthen the commercial ability of the national ports to function it should have been accompanied by stronger and more accountable structures of port governance.

This legislation does not enhance the governance and running of our ports. Many of the measures contained in the Bill will make our ports less democratic and less accountable and will increase the ability of the Minister to stack port boards with Government cronies who may not provide the commercial leadership and drive that our ports need in these challenging economic times. In this context, the dropping of the statutory provision to provide for local county councillor representation on the boards of ports is appalling and is something the Labour Party will continue to bitterly oppose. Ports are embedded in the local community. To therefore remove the input of the democratically elected representatives of the community from the board of the port when any port development will have a massive impact on local people's lives is a retrograde step.

This legislation proposes a similar outrageous reduction in the role of worker-directors in our ports, which the Labour Party has already strongly opposed through my colleagues in Seanad Éireann, Senators Michael McCarthy and Brendan Ryan. I urge the Minister to withdraw these unacceptable legislative provisions in the Bill on Committee Stage.

Other critical issues for ports and maritime transport, some of which are key aspects of the Government's 2005 ports policy statement, are completely ignored in the legislation. The Bill does not advance the full integration of the ports into the national transport system, even though this was a key reason given at the time for the cannibalisation of the Department with responsibility for the marine and the subsequent transfer of marine transport and ports into the Department of Transport. We have had discussions on integrated transport recently and the importance of facilitating port traffic. Why did the Minister not take this opportunity to lay down some basic statutory guidelines for the full integration of transport systems? This applies particularly to rail freight systems for our national ports. We see the great problems the port of Cork had in its development. The Cork board and the NRA seemed to be singing from different hymn sheets in respect of the development of the N28. We need integration, a matter to which the Minister referred in his smart travel document. He had the opportunity to give it a statutory basis in respect of heavy goods movement and he has not done so. There are other glaring omissions in the legislation, including issues of overall port capacity, competition, costs and regulation, which was highlighted in the 2005 document and to which I will return. It is also very disappointing there was little or no consultation on important measures including the significant mergers that are proposed in this Bill, particularly those of Cork and Bantry, and Tralee and Fenit pier, the harbour to Shannon Foynes Port Company and on the series of amendments to maritime pilotage.

This Bill has been many years in gestation and then nearly ten months in legislative limbo while it worked its way through the system. I sympathise with the loss of Deputy Noel Ahern's role as Minister of State yet, given his baffling lethargy on road safety matters, it is very strange that he did not drive this critical marine transport legislation through the Oireachtas as a matter of priority. The Bill was launched on the Friday evening of a bank holiday weekend, a style of launching major documents to which the Minister seems attached to, compared to a more democratic style where the Opposition spokesperson would have an opportunity to comment on major developments.

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