Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

The existing composition of the boards, such as in Bantry, is not costing the Department one cent. We are a profit making organisation. This year the hope is to make a profit of approximately €250,000. There is a harbour master under the guidance of Cork and a full-time secretary. They are paid and spend money on various projects. Where will we end up after all this? It is something I would like the Minister of State to consider. Please do not try to undo what has been done.

If one takes the LEADER model, which is supported across Departments, and has been set up and will be in place for the next six years, many of the people involved are councillors or town councillors. They will not do a bad job. They are elected by the people, they are responsible to the people and have to face them in votes. There is no evidence anywhere that putting a county councillor, a town councillor or an urban councillor on boards might contaminate the boards. We have never had allegations of corruption in port authorities. I am concerned about these marriages. I have not come to the relevant section yet and I have a long story to tell on it. A marriage was also supposed to take place between the ports in Waterford, Rosslare and New Ross. The shotgun was fired but as far as I know they did not get married and they are still independent. We will have a great deal to say when we come to part of the Bill relevant to this matter.

Reducing the number on a board from 11 to eight might be of some merit if each board member in Bantry, Dingle, Fenit or Sligo received €10,000 per year and having 11 members meant payments of €110,000 along with ancillary costs. To my knowledge the 11 members of the Bantry board receive nothing apart from one small exception, and I am not being flippant in mentioning it, in that they are provided with drums of fine fresh drinking water at meetings. Apart from that they receive nothing, not even tea or biscuits. They cost nothing. I ask the Minister of State to think again and not to jump over the cliff and have a knee-jerk reaction because of corporate governance that works in one Department but not in another.

Town and county councillors are becoming more irrelevant. We cannot move this way or that. We are being shackled and must go in straight lines. However, my part of the world in west Cork has many corners and bends and mountains to climb. What is proposed here might be the norm in corporate governance and it might be suggested that it should be done everywhere. However, whoever will be here in 20 years time — I will not and I hope to be above and alongside Himself if he has a spare seat for me — will be undoing what we are doing and will be thinking the fellows representing the people at the start of the century went mad. They will be right.