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

How do we get to the kernel of this issue? The Minister made reference to due diligence earlier and during the Committee Stage debate I pointed out that the due diligence process was obstructed. Local councillors were told recently that due diligence is unable to proceed because of commercial sensitivity. That is the kernel of the problem. The harbour is seen as a commercially focused, corporate entity which is why we cannot get full information about what is going on or about its assets and liabilities. This goes to the heart of the problem in Dún Laoghaire Harbour and explains why people are so angry about the plans the company has come up with and why they are so opposed to them. Nobody really knows what is going on. The company is unaccountable.

I cannot speak for the other harbours in the country. Perhaps this structure works there, but I have my doubts. Certainly, what Deputy John Deasy said about the situation in Waterford seems to echo what I have been saying about Dún Laoghaire Harbour. I will not comment on them because I do not know enough about it. However, in Dún Laoghaire Harbour, it has reached the point where the ability of the Bill to be effectively enacted is now being blocked because of so-called commercial sensitivity.

I thanked the Minister, quite genuinely, for sending me the departmental correspondence vis-à-visthe cruise berth. However, there was one aspect of that correspondence which I found very interesting and I ask the Minister to enlighten me on it, if he can. In the relatively recent correspondence between the Department and the harbour company, two of the three proposals the company made for the harbour are blacked out. The proposals are redacted. I do not know what they are but would argue that this is important information. I would like to know, as would those in the Visitors Gallery and those who attended hearings and public meetings, what the harbour company wants to do with the harbour. However, in correspondence I received from the Minister, he cannot tell me. Why? It is because of the corporate structure and this is the price one pays when one sets up a semi-privatised entity.

The management of Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has explained that the due diligence process has been prevented from continuing. I do not know how this issue will be resolved. The council has stated it is not sure how it will be resolved but that it is committed to resolving it. On the basis of some of the Minister's earlier comments, I gather that it will be some time before we get a decision because the due diligence cannot proceed at present and could take a very long time. In the interim, we do not know what the harbour company wants to do on some matters. What we do know, however, is that it wants to take a huge financial gamble. It has already spent €600,000 on a planning application to which there is huge public opposition. Things are happening, facts are being created on the ground and in the harbour which people do not want, yet we cannot get full information about the financial status of the harbour or the company's plans for it. That is not satisfactory or acceptable.

The Minister said all public assets must keep financial considerations in mind and must have the ability to wash their own face but Killiney Hill, for example, does not do that and neither does Howth Head.

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