Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

That was one of the items that emerged. Removing local authority members from the boards was another issue, as was the worker director.

The ten ports are now focused commercial bodies and 12 people is too many to have on their boards. The recommendation of different professional people, which has been put into the ports policy document approved by Government in 2005, is that the size the boards should be reduced from 12 to eight.