Averil Power (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If the Acting Chairman is finished embarrassing people in the Visitors Gallery. I thank the Minister of State for his response. He referred to the tourist kiosk, which typifies everything that is wrong and the point I am trying to make.

The tourist kiosk is an 8 ft. by 8 ft. prefabricated container. Fingal County Council wanted to install this temporary building at the front of the harbour because the previous tourist office was way down at the bottom and tourists did not see it when they came out of the DART station. Even though there was tonnes of space at the front of the harbour where this could be temporarily located, it took months to get approval from the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine. There was all kinds of wrangling. Council officials were pulling their hair out because they were paying for all of the works. They had the building and they were paying for the works, but they could not get approval from the Department to go ahead and do the works. We had missed much of the start of the tourism season by the time the approval was finally put in place, which is typical. Letters were going back and forth from the Chief State Solicitor. I do not know what the cost of all of the stuff that was going on was., but it certainly cost more than the cost of the 8 ft. by 8 ft. container. The whole thing was just ridiculous.

The Minister of State referred to the user forum, which I accept is in place. The reality on the ground, however, is that people do not consider the Department to be very co-operative in terms of being proactive and wanting to do new things in Howth. That is the difficulty. It is a real problem. If the Minister of State or the Minister, Deputy Coveney, were to consult any of the interested groups in Howth - I ask them to do so - they would get the same message. The same thing happened in the case of the sea scouts. The Department wanted to rack up their rent massively, which would have pushed them out of their current facility. We had to argue over that for the best part of a year, just as we did in the case of the kiosk. Everything seems to involve a row.

I accept the point the Minister of State made about the various events that have taken place in Howth. The Asgard celebration was fantastic, as are the other festivals we have locally. I know from the groups that organise these events every year that they endure a crazy degree of hassle to get approval. I am talking about people who volunteer their own time in addition to running their own businesses locally. It seems to them that the whole process is designed to discourage people from doing things. There is a lack of productivity. I think there is incredible potential there. I ask the Minister of State to convey this message to the Minister, Deputy Coveney. There is goodwill on the ground from local businesses, community groups and clubs like the yacht club.

I would like to mention another issue that shows how small the thinking is. I understand the proposal the Department made with regard to paid parking has been parked, to use an unfortunate phrase. The proposal to introduce paid parking in the harbour would not have covered its costs.