Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for coming to the House. I would have preferred to see the Minister, Deputy Coveney, but I am aware the Minister of State has some knowledge of and interest in this matter.

This weekend the Howth business and wider community will host the Dublin Bay Prawn Festival, which has an outstanding programme of activities including food tasting, cookery demonstrations, live music starting tonight with The Luke Kelly Experience in the Abbey Tavern, walking tours, fireworks and children's activities. The Acting Chairman is welcome to come over from his southern fastness and visit us out in the peninsula for this annual festival. Unfortunately, the Ministers, Deputy Coveney and Deputy Bruton, are planning to spoil all the fun. There has been a tremendous effort - as the Minister of State is aware, because he attended our chamber of commerce - on the part of the business and community organisation, in hosting events such as the prawn festival and many other activities, to develop, maintain and expand leisure activities, and particularly marine tourism, in the entire peninsula area.

People are devastated by the proposal to introduce paid parking charges in the harbour. As the Minister will be aware from his portfolio, local businesses are struggling to keep people employed, including one of the businesses on the pier, Doran's, which employs 62 workers. Many of the jobs in the wider restaurant business are threatened if the two Ministers go ahead with this proposal. As the Acting Chairman is aware, Howth is a unique tourist and leisure destination for all of Dublin and the wider Leinster region, but visitors will be discouraged from visiting the peninsula if these charges are introduced.

I first raised this matter with the Minister, Deputy Coveney, last autumn. In the intervening period I have been contacted by hundreds of local residents, neighbours and community and sporting organisations which are bitterly opposed to this proposal because they believe it will inevitably lead to paid parking through the town and across the peninsula. Incredibly, the Minister, Deputy Coveney, has refused to meet some of the key stakeholders and, as the Minister of State is aware, he launched this proposal without meeting anybody. The Minister told me in reply to a parliamentary question recently that he has received a good deal of correspondence from a wide range of harbour users and workers and the local community. He also mentioned the website, which is howthharbourparking.webs.com. All of our community leaders and groups in Howth are more than willing to meet the Minister of State and the senior Minister but they want a commitment today that the Department will engage in a proper consultation process, examine the economics of this proposal and determine, as we see clearly, that it is ill-judged and should be withdrawn.

There was some indication in previous replies from the Minister that the Garda had been contacted about parking and safety issues in the harbour, but I was assured by our local superintendent that no such complaint was made and no such problem raised.

One of the extraordinary aspects of this saga is that of the six fishery harbours, only Howth has been singled out for a paid parking regime. I am aware there are some charges in Rossaveal and Dingle but the local businesses in the Rossaveal area are located outside the parking area of the harbour. The users of Dingle have a code that allows them walk through and not pay. The key sister fishery harbours of Howth, two of which I know very well - Castletown and Killybegs - have no such regime and they will not have, as the Minister knows from visiting those areas, because it would not be tolerated. As Mr. Paul Brady, president of our Howth Sutton Baldoyle Chamber of Commerce, reminded me in one of his excellent briefings on this issue, the introduction of paid charges has resulted in business closures at Dún Laoghaire Harbour.

The Minister has told me that the annual income to the Department from Howth is €766,000, €182,000 of which is direct income from the fishing industry. The bulk of the remainder comes from restaurants, leisure and marine businesses, including our world-famous yacht club. Those figures given by the Minister, Deputy Coveney, some months ago confirm the vital importance of the marine leisure sector to the economic vibrancy of Howth Harbour, yet there is no indication that the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine has carried out even a basic cost-benefit analysis of the costings and the amount of money that would be lost were this proposal to go ahead.

There has been a total failure of public policy formation in this matter. The importance of the Howth Peninsula and Howth town and harbour to the leisure activities of a wide tranche of north Dublin and the wider north Leinster region has been ignored. I ask that the Minister, Deputy Coveney, withdraw the proposal.

The Minister of State visited our chamber of commerce and made an excellent presentation on developing businesses in the Howth-Sutton-Baldoyle area. What we should be looking at are proactive ways, such as those he referred to that day, in which we can promote business, rather than destroy it. Residents of Howth are delighted to see visitors arrive, often in their tens of thousands on fine weekends, but this proposal would, unfortunately, be disastrous for them.

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