Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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597. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport further to the upcoming harbours (amendment) Bill, its proposed impact on port-handling operator licences; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27557/15]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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​The Harbours Bill 2015 will have no impact on port handling operator licenses. The management and operation of a port is a statutory matter for a port company or in those instances whereby a port company is dissolved and transferred to a local authority, that local authority.

Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein)
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598. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport further to the upcoming harbours (amendment) Bill, his views on whether there may be a potential conflict of interest for port companies which issue cargo-handling operator licences and licences for stevedoring in being involved directly as a competitor to these licensees; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [27558/15]

Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael)
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​In June 2012 as part of this Government's Action Plan for Jobs, my colleague the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise, and Innovation requested the Competition Authority to carry out a study of competition in the ports sector.

The Authority published a comprehensive report in November 2013 and I recommend the report to anybody with an interest in our ports sector. As committed to within National Ports Policy I issued a response to the Authority's six recommendations and that response is available to view on my Department's website.

The issue of stevedore licensing was examined by the Authority and formed the basis for one of the six recommendations. The Authority recommended that general stevedore licenses be granted to applicants on a fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory basis or through a tendering basis. The report also stated that where stevedoring services are provided exclusively by a port authority stevedore, this requirement should be clearly justified by the relevant port authorities.

As acknowledged in that report, our ports operate a number of different methods as regards the organisation of stevedoring within their port estate.  Some do not provide any stevedoring services whatsoever but instead license  private operators. Other ports provide stevedoring services through subsidiary companies in competition with private sector parties while others provide stevedoring exclusively through a subsidiary company.

The issue of competition in our port services market is extremely important and any particular concerns on any competition issue should be brought to the attention of the Competition Authority, which has the required statutory powers to enforce competition law.

At a European level there is currently a Port Services Regulation under consideration at the European Parliament, which proposes to address the issue of port services competition generally.