Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

The amendment inserts a new subsection under which a company's annual report to the Minister shall include a statement regarding employee numbers. This is designed to reflect the changes introduced in section 11 in respect of the calculation of the number of employees in each port company for the purposes of determining the election of worker directors. That is a new requirement and the relevant information will have to be included in annual reports, which will have to be submitted within four rather than six months.

Annual reports are presented to the Minister. The custom and practice is that they are also published by each port company. I understand that these reports are probably available in the Oireachtas Library.