Noel Ahern (Dublin North West, Fianna Fail)

The fundamental point is that this is enabling legislation that follows on from various consultants' reports and from the Government's ports policy published a few years ago. Senator O'Sullivan mentioned Wexford, but Wexford is in a different category. The reason Bantry and Fenit are mentioned is that when the original legislation was being published, the option existed to set up a private company or transfer them to a local authority. Wexford does not have any commercial traffic of significance. Talks are ongoing between Wexford Harbour board and Wexford County Council about transferring that. This has happened with a number of smaller harbour commissioners where the functions have been transferred to the relevant local authority.

Bantry and Fenit are different and this came out of the Government's ports policy document which stated that if Fenit was only about angling and fishing and tourism — I spent a week in Godley's Hotel once when the children were small and I meandered up and down every cul-de-sac at the time, but that was a while back——