Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all the Deputies for their contributions and want to respond to some of their points in respect of individual ports, and to parts of the Bill which Deputy Boyd Barrett has highlighted with his amendment. I will deal with some specific points before addressing the overall policy thrust which Deputy Boyd Barrett has proposed.

As Deputy Deasy has acknowledged, this legislation deals with the ports that are under the remit of my Department. I agree with him on the need to take ports very seriously and to acknowledge the contribution they make to our economic development. I have been at pains to do this as Minister. I have visited many of them myself, including Waterford Port in Deputy Deasy's constituency. The maintenance of our ports - dredging, access, railway links and so on - is fundamental to our ability to trade as an open, small economy. If we are unable to sell and export what we make or, more crucially, to deal with the products we take into our country and to which we can add value, our ability to grow in the future will be impaired.

That is why I am putting forward this Bill for the support of the House. It looks to build on the progress that was made earlier in this Government's tenure in developing a national port policy in which we have a clear strategy on the role of different ports, underpinned through primary law. Regarding some of Deputy Deasy's comments on Waterford Port and its potential, it is one of our few ports, if not the only one, with a direct rail link onto the port itself. I saw the potential for goods to be taken directly off vessels and put onto the freight line, which already does a lot of business with the Coca Cola plant in Ballina in County Mayo. The port is also located beside Belview Industrial Park and, furthermore, I am aware of the kind of investment Glanbia has made in the region. I saw all of this myself on my visit.

A new CEO and a new chairman are now in place. I recently met the chairman. There are great opportunities for this port to move forward. In the past week or so, we have engaged with it in respect of how it might be access TEN-T funding in the future. We have been successful in accessing European funding for many different parts of infrastructure in the country and I would like to see our ports accessing that funding as well. I have had engagement with European bodies about it. We want to work with the board and management team in Waterford Port to look at how it can grasp those kind of opportunities. This links to a point I will make to Deputy O'Mahony. We must work with the port to look at how we can develop it from a policy perspective. If I look at its trading performance over the past 12 to 18 months, based on my engagement with the port, I can say that it does appear that in respect of some of the difficulties referred to by the Deputy in the past, it is trading more successfully than it had done previously. Again, I know from dealing directly with it that it is looking at a number of business opportunities to see how it can move forward in an even more successful manner. I look at the infrastructure it has from a rail link perspective and some of the investment that has clustered there recently. That is the kind of potential that we need to support through a policy like this and the work I want to do with the port, which I have tried to do recently.

In respect of Deputy O'Mahony's point about Galway Port, this again is a matter that we have debated in recent weeks in the committee of which he is a member as well as in this House. I again emphasise that we have ports that are part of local authority structures all over Europe that are successful in drawing down and accessing TEN-T funding. Rotterdam is the best example of this. It is part of a local authority structure but because the criteria for accessing TEN-T funding are independent of this Bill and are in many ways independent of the policy we are setting here, it is still able to access that funding and is able to access it as part of a local authority structure. I visited the port referred to by the Deputy. I am well aware of its adjacency. I understand the plans it has but I will not comment on them in the same way I will not comment on the plans referred to by Deputy Boyd Barrett because they are part of the latter stages of the planning process. I can confirm that I am aware that there are a number of matters relating to that port that need to be resolved and moved forward, for example, due diligence. I am certain that this port and ports of its scale are more successfully managed within the communities and regions in which they are located. That is why I believe that embedding the port within a local authority structure is the best way in which it can be run, both in terms of the success of that from a trading perspective and in terms of its ability to be integrated into the development plans of the city and county.

I can confirm that neither I, nor, I believe, a future Minister will sign a Commencement Order to carry through with this Bill until the different processes to which I have referred are complete. It is my expectation that it will take 18 months to work out the matters to which we have referred. At the end of that period, the Commencement Order for that port will be signed.

If I take a step back to look at the broad points referred to by Deputies Ellis and Boyd Barrett, Deputy Boyd Barrett has acknowledged in recent weeks and again this evening that I agree with much of what he says. I am clear in emphasising, and I have tried to do so again in response to Deputy O'Mahony, that I believe that ports of a certain scale and with certain uses are better managed within the local authority in which they are located. I believe one will see a focus, an energy and a sense of ownership in these ports that can be good for their development. In that, which is the broad thrust of what this Bill is about, I think Deputy Boyd Barrett has acknowledged that we agree. I believe that Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council and its members and executive offer the best framework within which the plans for the port can be achieved. I look forward to seeing that happen.

I am not accepting the amendment put forward by the Deputy, which is the same amendment I spoke about on Committee Stage, for two reasons. The first reason goes back to the matter I mentioned to the Deputy on Committee Stage. It concerns how one defines a bona fide harbour group and a resident and community group and how it is done in primary legislation. If, once we have enabled local authorities in the way I am proposing in this Bill, they want to go ahead with those processes and put those groups in place, that is their business. As the units of Government that are closest in many cases to these matters, they can put in place structures like that. I am making it very clear that within legislation, the primary area of the governance of those ports will be embedded within local authorities. The reason why I do not believe it should be brought forward in primary legislation is because I believe that local authorities should be able to determine that themselves.

With regard to what the Deputy is seeking to do in terms of striking a balance of power between the executive and the elected members, arguments with which I am very familiar, those areas are outside the remit of a Bill that is principally dealing with ports and harbours. They are broader matters for consideration by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and his Department rather than myself.

That being said, I again draw the Deputy's attention to other sections of the Bill that include the provision for the chairperson and the CEO of the port and harbour to come before the local authority members. I refer to the fact that the audited accounts of the port and harbour must be laid before the local authority and discussed there. I also refer to the provision that any proposed chairperson must come before the local elected members. In many ways, this Bill gives the same scope to members of the local authority that is available to Members of the Oireachtas and the relevant Oireachtas committee in respect of their ability to engage with the officers of the port and harbour if it is retained as a discrete unit within the local authority. All those provisions will be there.

I will conclude on a point that will be relevant to a debate we will have later. I will bring forward an amendment relating to section 21 of this Bill that has been prompted by the discussion we had on Committee Stage, in which I participated, as the Deputy knows, to bring in a mandatory review of a transferred company three years after its transfer. If such a port is brought in and kept as such a unit, I will introduce an amendment that mandates a review of the accounts of that company and its performance three years after it has been brought into the local authority.

That is to further address the points the Deputy made about how to strengthen the relationship between the local authority and the port and harbour brought under it. Deputy Ellis supported some of Deputy Boyd Barrett's points. I am also aware, as is the Ceann Comhairle, of the great importance and historic significance of the port we are referring to and I completely appreciate its current value to the community in which it is located and to everybody who uses it. However, I am genuine in my contention that this Bill, and its provisions, offer the best platform on which matters relevant to ports of that scale can be successfully dealt with.

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