Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Amendment No. 29 proposes to insert:

“(2) In respect of Dun Laoghaire Harbour, the Minister shall with the consent of the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform and the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, by order provide for—

(a) the dissolution without winding up of the company, and

(b) the transfer of the company’s harbour to Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council,

This proposes to dissolve the existing harbour company structure and put it in as a fully integrated part of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, effectively as a department of the council. That option may not be appropriate for other harbours. That is the point on the technical matter. I do not want to say that option should be ruled out for other harbours, but we are trying to rule out the option of retaining the harbour company as a corporate subsidiary for Dún Laoghaire. That is the purpose of it. I hope I am making myself clear on that.

One of the things that was discussed at the An Bord Pleanála meeting but also more generally was a way to connect the harbour to the town. Everybody accepts that the town needs to be revitalised. Everybody also understands that Dún Laoghaire Harbour is the jewel in the crown of the assets of Dún Laoghaire. We somehow need to marry these things better so that they enhance each other and help revitalise a town that needs to be revitalised.

If that is what everybody wants and people from all sides express a desire to do it in any discussion on it, the logical follow-on from that is not to have two separate entities and rather have one entity. If we retain the existing company structure, notionally the two bodies are under one umbrella, but in reality they are separate bodies. The Minister might say there would still be a little more oversight - I accept that - of the council, the budgets and so on, but there will still be two separate bodies.

Cherrywood, as an example of this, will come into the frame fairly soon. Cherrywood is run by a corporate subsidiary of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council. So it is like option (a) as set out in amendment No. 29.

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