John Ellis (Fianna Fail)

This is an opportunity for us to examine the situation in the country's ports. I agree with Senator Cummins on one issue. The race to remove elected local authority members from public bodies arose previously with the Dublin Transport Authority Bill. On that occasion the Minister accepted an amendment that originated from the Government side of the House and was agreed by all sides. The same should be done with port authorities. If the membership of a port company is to be reduced to eight, there should be a pro rata reduction in the number of local authority members. When the membership was 12, there were three local authority members, so consideration should be given to two of the eight members being local authority members.

The local authority plays a major role for ports. It is responsible for roads to the port and for overall development in the port area. The Minister has discretion to appoint a local authority member to the board but that does not mean the Minister will not be lobbied by every Member seeking to have X, Y or Z appointed, not because he or she might be the best person to do the job but because we will all be put under the famous old political pressure to do something for the individual. The local authorities have always been reasonably fair in making these appointments and, in most cases, have politically divided them to ensure a balance. Irrespective of who the Minister of the day will be, he or she will have to bow to his or her political colleagues when appointing a local authority member. It might be easier for the Minister if the local authorities appointed their own representatives. The Minister would then only have to worry about appointing people who have the commercial orientation necessary to develop our ports further.

This Bill was undertaken as a result of the Jonathan Packer report. That report is six years old. I have fears about depending on something that old. I am aware the Minister has taken the advice of the Department about this but reflecting on something that is six years old and trying to move on from that to frame legislation could result in the legislation being out of date before it is out of the Houses. There will be anomalies left, right and centre because of the development that has taken place in this country over the past ten to 15 years.

There is a degree of concern about some of the smaller ports that are due to be subsumed into the larger ports. That is the case with Bantry and the two Kerry ports. A case should be made for some of these smaller ports. Bantry, for example, is used by only a few people but it has quite an amount of cash reserves, which cannot be said for some of the other ports. Something could be done to allow that port to continue as an independent entity. I am saying this too on behalf of my colleague, Senator O'Donovan, who regrettably cannot be present today. He has expressed a view on this issue and I accept that view. I saw what happened with the rationalisation of co-operatives. The smaller co-operatives that had cash were taken over by the bigger players who needed the cash reserves to keep themselves in business. The same is happening with Bantry. I urge the Minister to review this and see if something can be done to maintain the port as it is.

I have fears about An Bord Pleanála being the deciding body in land acquisition. If it takes that body as long to deal with land acquisition for a port as it does to give decisions on any type of complicated or semi-complicated planning case, the port's need would be long past before it could get access to the land. It would be more understandable if the planning element were sent immediately to An Bord Pleanála rather than going through the local authority, but that is not suggested in the Bill.

There is a need to remove bodies such as An Bord Pleanála and as many other quangos as possible from legislation. They prevent progress. At least when a Minister has to make a decision, it is up to those in the Department to implement it. However, if, for example, the proposed new port in north Dublin is sent to An Bord Pleanála, it will be there for eternity. Something must be done about this. The compulsory purchase order powers should remain vested in the Minister rather than be handed over to An Bord Pleanála. I can understand the issue going to the outside body for planning once the area to be acquired has been decided, but definitely not the acquisition. The Minister should review this.

After all, this takes away some of the Minister's powers. I doubt any Member wants that to happen in this case. Too much ministerial power has been given to quangos over recent years. There is a need for Ministers to exercise their powers. Ministerial office does not simply mean dealing with public relations matters all the time. The office exists to take decisions that are in the national interest. The best people to make those decisions are politicians, irrespective of their political parties. Politicians must face the electorate and people who do not should have only an implementation role. This applies to practically every body in this country. When Ministers make decisions, nine times out of ten they are much better than those made by the quangos. Considerable power has been ceded to the latter by Ministers in the past 20 to 25 years, or since I first came into this House. This is regrettable as far as John Citizen is concerned because he cannot gain access to anybody with decision-making power.

There is a need for total rationalisation of many of the quangos, which are not answerable to anybody. A Minister is answerable to the Houses of the Oireachtas or committees thereof. However, some of the quangos, if invited to appear before an Oireachtas committee, would tell it they had no responsibility in that regard and did not have to accept anything. They are autonomous and have far too much power in the development of this country.

A number of major ports are not mentioned in the legislation. Who will set the port tariffs? Will the bigger users be treated preferentially to kill off the smaller users of some of our ports? We have all heard allegations in recent weeks to the effect that large companies are getting much more beneficial rates than some of the small ones. I have written to the chairman of the port concerned to determine whether this is the case. If it is, the small operators will never be able to develop shipping lines from this country. We have all seen the detrimental effect of monopolies on our economy. The Minister of State pointed out in his opening remarks that 75% of our exports leave by sea. This places an enormous responsibility on the Government to ensure there will be equal access and help in respect of ports and their development.

Reference has been made to the north Dublin port and the one in Drogheda. Further north there are ports in Greenore, Warrenpoint, Larne and Derry. In the west, Killybegs is being developed further as a port. What co-ordination is there between the Department of Transport, which now has responsibility for ports, and its counterpart in Northern Ireland? It is important to the part of the country from where I come that there be good access to Derry, Warrenpoint or Larne, which have been used traditionally by port traffic. Much traffic from the west and north west of the Republic has gone through these ports.

A co-ordinated effort could lead to major savings right across the board. It is desirable that one be able to avail of a proper service from the nearest port rather than having to hawk commodities from Donegal to Waterford or Rosslare. It is a much shorter spin to Larne, Warrenpoint or Dublin. This needs to be considered. When we create a full port policy, we should do so on a national basis and seek agreement from our elected colleagues in Northern Ireland that this be the approach. This is very important and I appeal to the Minister of State to determine what can be done in this regard.

We would all support the concept of ports having sufficient capability to borrow. If they are to be competitive, they must have the most modern equipment, be it X-ray equipment, handling equipment or otherwise.

I am a little worried over who decides what constitutes 50% of the value of a port. Is it calculated by the auditors in their report to the port company or is there an actual valuation? Much of the value is theoretical and I hope that, because of the way in which we have increased the sum that may be borrowed by a port, they will not end up in debt beyond their capacity to repay. Some ports are dependent on certain lines of business. If they were to lose that business or certain commodity businesses, they would find very quickly that they could not honour major commitments.

We all welcome this Bill because we need to upgrade our ports as much as possible. I appeal to the Minister of State to consider on Committee Stage an amendment to allow for local authority members to be represented on a pro rata basis. Given that the number of directors is to be reduced from 12 to eight, the number of local authority members should be reduced from three to two.

When appointing ministerial nominees, the only people who should be considered are those with a commercial background who know what needs to be done. They may be associated with another port some distance away or with international trade, but they must understand what needs to be done. The day of appointing somebody because he or she is a good accountant, county manager or county secretary is over. The day should come on which all ports will be run as commercial entities with the intention of making them profitable and improving the manner in which they can facilitate exportation and importation. We must accept traffic in both directions. If we do not run them as commercial entities, they will end up being run out of business by our colleagues in Northern Ireland.