Vol. 474 No. 6
55 Mr. B. O'Keeffe asked the Minister for the Marine the reason for appropriating two seats to Cork Corporation in the new Cork Port Authority while allowing one to Cork County Council in view of the fact that the major concentration of industry is located in the county council area. [2416/97]
Section 30 (6) of the Harbours Act, 1996 provides that the Minister for the Marine shall appoint three members of a prescribed local authority or local authorities, each of whom has been nominated in the prescribed manner by a prescribed local authority or local authorities to be a director of a company.
It was, therefore, necessary for me to prescribe in regulations the nominating local authorities and the manner in which the local authority directors are to be nominated. The Port Companies (Appointment of Local Authority Directors) Regulations, 1996 (S.I. No. 335 of 1996) were signed by me on 14 November 1996. The Regulations provide, inter alia, that Cork Corporation will nominate two directors to the Port of Cork Company and that Cork County Council will nominate one director. In drawing up the regulations, I endeavoured to structure representation in a fair and reasonable manner. In so far as local authority representation on the Port of cork Company is concerned, I took the following into consideration: (i) the main areas of economic activity at the public quays in Cork Harbour are Ringaskiddy in Cork County and Tivoli in Cork city, which between them handled a throughput of 1,752,480 tonnes in 1996; 41 per cent of this was handled at Ringaskiddy and 59 per cent at Tivoli; (ii) in financial terms, the 1996 revenue yield to Cork Harbour Commissioners from operations in Ringaskiddy and Tivoli can be broken down as to 35 per cent Ringaskiddy and 65 per cent Tivoli and (iii) historically, Cork Corporation has had representation on Cork Harbour Commissioners since 1946 while Cork County Council was only granted such representation in 1991.
It was for these reasons I concluded that it would be fair and reasonable to grant the corporation two seats and the county council one seat on the board of the port of Cork company.
