Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 31:

In page 47, to delete line 6.

I listened to the debate earlier when Deputy John O'Mahony raised an issue with the Minister about Galway Port. I congratulate the Deputy on securing a stay of 18 months on the decision of the Minister in the Bill to downgrade Galway Port. The Minister has said it is a great idea to have ports under the aegis of local authorities. However, if one follows the logic that it is great to be a tier 3 as opposed to a tier 2 or tier 1 port, why will Cork, Rosslare, Waterford, Foynes and Dublin ports continue to have port companies instead of being placed under the local authorities? Is it because the Minister believes the major national ports should be independent and have stand-alone companies rather than being under the aegis of the local authorities? What he is clearly telling us is that there is no need to have a major national port, either now or in the future, between Foynes and Derry on the longest stretch of coast in the country, but so be it; that is his decision.

It is welcome that the Minister has said he will put a stay of 18 months on this decision. It is particularly welcome that this will give the electorate in Galway an opportunity to indicate in their choice as to who should be in government whether it thinks this is a good policy and to vote to make sure at the end of the 18 months the Government will not be in power to see it through.

I know the public service. It is very determined when it has a policy in mind and good luck to it. I know that many of its members sincerely believe that along the west coast there should not be national ports, national airports, national roads and all the rest, which is fair enough. They measure everything by current traffic volumes rather than by what they might be in the future. A quote from George Bernard Shaw reads, "Some men see things as they are and say, why; I dream things that never were and say, why not?" In the case of Galway Port the answer is quite simple. It is a gated port into which one can only get in two hours with every tide. Therefore, it is important that we give the Minister's colleagues from the west an opportunity to stand in solidarity with the people of Galway.

Next spring the people will have an opportunity to stand up for themselves in a general election when they will be able to ensure they elect people who do not believe Galway should be left with a regional port but that it should have a national port, that the threatened downgrading the Minister is providing for in the Bill will make it much harder to raise the necessary finance to develop the port in the way we are to develop it.

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