Dáil debates

Tuesday, 10 March 2015

3:20 pm

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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122. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport in view of the deepening financial difficulties faced by Dún Laoghaire Harbour, if there is any justification for the continued existence of the harbour board, and the senior executives, with all the associated costs; his views on integrating the front-line staff, under direct council control; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [9881/15]

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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The Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company is a quango that has failed and should be dissolved forthwith. Its history is 18 years of jobs for the boys at the top, with lavish salaries and expenses, who have run the harbour into the ground. We have had another nail in the coffin with the Stena service being withdrawn. I am asking the Minister if we can simply dissolve Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company and put it back under direct council control where the people of Dún Laoghaire can have some say about how we can save the harbour as an amenity and a working harbour.

Photo of Paschal DonohoePaschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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I am very clear that the future of Dún Laoghaire Harbour is best placed within a local authority led governance structure as set out in the national ports policy. My officials are currently finalising the text of the Harbours (Amendment) Bill 2015. The Bill will provide the legal basis for the transfer by ministerial orders of the five designated ports of regional significance, which are Drogheda, Dún Laoghaire, Galway, New Ross and Wicklow.  I expect shortly to seek Government approval of the Bill and to commence its passage through the Oireachtas.

The Bill is designed to provide maximum legislative flexibility and will allow for either a transfer to the local authority of the ministerial shareholding in a particular company or a transfer of all assets, liabilities and employees of the port company to the local authority and the dissolution of that company's corporate structure. Ahead of the Bill’s enactment, Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council will carry out a full due diligence of the harbour company. I look forward to the completion of that process and receipt of its findings and the council’s perspective thereon.

Obviously, the optimal manner of transfer is one which finds broad based consensus and agreement between all parties. I am committed to working with both the company and the council to ensure the sustainable future of the harbour.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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I have been asking about this issue for the past four or five years. I am very glad that we are moving the harbour company back under council control. It is something we have been calling for in Dún Laoghaire for a long time but the issue left hanging by the former Minister, Deputy Varadkar, was whether it would be a corporate subsidiary or directly under the council. The former Minister, Deputy Varadkar, said he favoured it being a corporate subsidiary. I want clarity, and a commitment, that it will not be a corporate subsidiary because in terms of the jobs for the boys, the management structure, administration, excessive fees, excessive salaries and massive amounts of money wasted on master plans that never came to fruition, there was waste at every level while the harbour itself has been run into the ground and the front-line staff reduced to negligible numbers. It has been a failure.

To give the Minister some idea, this harbour company has 20 employees left and the CEO gets €136,000 a year, €12,000 on top of that in fees for going to nine meetings a year and €10,000 extra in expenses for reasons unknown - he used to get €20,000 until we kicked up about it. In answer to a question about another €20,000 he paid himself, he stated he paid that in lieu of holidays, which one is not allowed to do. The Minister's predecessor, Deputy Varadkar, stated that was unacceptable. We still have not received an explanation of it.

There are millions of euro wasted on master plans that have never come to fruition. It is a honey pot that is being exploited by these executives through directors' fees etc. while the harbour has been run into the ground. Can the Minister bring the harbour back fully under local authority control and get rid of this structure?

3:30 pm

Photo of Paschal DonohoePaschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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Let me emphasise that I am clear that the appropriate location for a port of this scale and location is within a local authority which, in this case, is Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown. I am well aware of the challenges that the port faces to be sustainable in the future due in no small part to the decision of Stena Sealink to consolidate its services within Dublin Port.

It is necessary that issues in relation to the development of that harbour be handled in the context of it residing within the local authority and I will be making a decision soon regarding the method within which that will happen. Alongside that, I need to introduce the Bill that will give statutory footing to the harbour policy, as I outlined earlier, and I may need to get Government agreement to do that soon.

Photo of Richard Boyd BarrettRichard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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In achieving that, I ask that we do not have a CEO of a company with 20 staff who is paying himself €150,000, including expenses, a year, other executives who are paying themselves €100,000 a year each, or chairpersons and directors who between them over the past ten years have taken €100,000 to €40,000 in expenses. One can go on through the list. Millions of euro were wasted on consultants' plans when the harbour, as an amenity and a working port, has been run into the ground. This wasteful, parasitical executive management and board structure must be dissolved. One could save €600,000 a year if one did so, and that could be put in to employing staff to do real work to develop it as a public amenity and working harbour, which these persons have singularly failed to do.

Photo of Paschal DonohoePaschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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In order for me to make a decision regarding the manner in which this port will be integrated into the local authority, first I need to bring in the legislation which will create the framework inside which those decisions will be made, and I will do that. I will gain Government agreement to the heads of the Bill and will introduce the legislation shortly afterwards.

As I stated, when that is in place I will make a decision regarding how that integration will best happen. My objective is to come up with a way in which that port can have a secure and sustainable future. I am very much aware that some of the recent decisions that have been made, particularly the decision by Stena Sealink, have severe consequences for that port, and that is best handled inside the local authority.

Photo of Michael KittMichael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)
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Deputy Clare Daly is not present for the next question.

Question No. 123 replied to with Written Answers.