Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

Perhaps this is a weasel question to the Minister of State and if he does not have an answer, he might respond to me on Report Stage. We should be allowed know the composition of the new eight-person boards. Will the trade union movement have a representative? The Minister may appoint one. What will be this new eight-person line-up? Has the Minister of State any idea who they will be?

I note we are excluding local authority members, which I think is a mistake. I already mentioned the Leader model set-up, which is a good one and which is the way to go. There are 17 members on that new set-up, including representatives from the islands, various organisations such as those of fishermen and farmers, the ICA and other groups. It is a good model and it will not cost the State a great deal.

We in this country are suffering. I am not saying what the Minister of State is doing is unique as it applies across other Departments. One cannot appoint a local authority member to any board. I think we are suffering a knock-on effect of what happened in the tribunals, especially the planning tribunal. With all due respect, I must put my hands up. There were problems in the greater Dublin area. The three Senators present represent different parts of Ireland and, thankfully, the same contamination did not apply to planning in every other local authority in Ireland. There is this feeling that mistakes were made — no doubt there were serious mistakes, people suffered and the inquiry is still ongoing — but we must not take a knee-jerk reaction to something very wrong which happened in a particular area over a particular period and which I believe will never happen again. Local authority members are suffering because of this.

The Minister of State mentioned the statutory audit of port companies, etc. There are probably at least four reports. The Bantry Bay Harbour Commissioners were set up by the Harbours Act 1976 and since then, there have been four or five reports, long before 2000, on the future of Bantry.

A matter puzzling me may not be related directly but I think it is linked to what has been said about local authority members. Why did the Port of Cork Company, which is in existence for a long time and to which I wish good luck, not come in to take over when there was in an awful mess in Bantry Bay? Bantry Bay was bogged down with three major oil pollution incidents. The second or third biggest oil pollution incident in the world happened in Bantry Bay in 1974 when millions of gallons were released. That is the reason the Bantry Bay Harbour Commissioners were set up by Government. There were problems in Bantry Bay and harbour and no one had come in to clean up the mess. Cork Port did not rush in to spend the €100 million, €200 million or whatever it cost. The Bantry Bay Harbour Commissioners were set up because we had to clean up our own mess and we were given the autonomy to do it. Now that things are going nicely in the harbour, the mess has been cleaned up — the ecological damage to the flora and fauna of the general area was such that it took months and years for some of it to recover — and there is no more pollution of the bay, it suits someone at a particular level to have the harbour under the control of Cork Port. To add to this, we are excluding local authority members from port company boards.

Whether we are dealing with section 8 or section 11, it is a horse of the same colour. While I would have to refrain from expressing some of my thoughts, I believe it is not wrong to have a town, borough or city councillor on one of these boards. The cost to the Exchequer is frivolous. I wonder at all this talk of transparency when what is really happening is the diminution of democracy. That is a serious worry. Perhaps the Minister will respond on those points. If there are three or four months until Report Stage, perhaps he will take that opportunity to review this issue.