Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 12 November 2008
89 Deputy Phil Hogan asked the Minister for Transport if he has received a communication from the executive committee of the Association of County and City Councils regarding a provision in the Harbours (Amendment) Bill 2008 which will remove the right of county and city councils to appoint members to the boards of harbour companies; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39953/08]
View answerI confirm that I have recently received representations from the Association of County and City Councils regarding proposals contained within the Harbours (Amendment) Bill 2008 on the reform of port company board structures. The Harbours (Amendment) Bill 2008 recently commenced its passage through the Oireachtas and is currently in the Seanad. The primary purpose of the Bill is to give effect to certain aspects of the ports' policy statement, which was launched in January 2005 and is available to view on my Department's website. One of the key recommendations of the statement was the need to enhance port company performance through reform of the board structure. These recommendations are the basis for the provisions on board structure, which are contained in the Harbours (Amendment) Bill 2008. There will be ample opportunity to debate these proposals and other related matters during the passage of the Bill through the Oireachtas. We are currently on Committee Stage of the Bill in the Seanad.
The Minister of State did not point out that those proposals include the removal from the harbour authorities of a number of public representatives from councils around the country. I appreciate that he acknowledged the letter he received from the Association of County and City Councils, but he had to do it. In their letter, they state they do not want public representatives to be removed from the harbour authorities. They believe they have a very important role to play in representing the local authorities near the port authorities. It is very important to maintain that link, so will the Minister of State reverse the decision to exclude a certain number of local authority members, if not all of them, from the Bill?
We are talking about ports, not harbour commissioners. There are ten ports.
One of them is in Drogheda.
There are currently three local authorities on the board of that port company, which has been the position since the mid 1990s. The remit and culture of ports has changed since corporatisation came in. They are now commercial State bodies. Other commercial State bodies such as airport authorities do not have local authority members on their boards. We are currently removing the statutory provision in which each port company would have three local authority members. The Minister has agreed that the smaller boards will have eight members rather than the current 12, but that one of the ministerial appointees will be a local authority member. Therefore, there will be one local authority member out of eight board members rather than three out of 12.
That is another issue. The local authority representative should be appointed by the local authority, not by the Minister. That would be local democracy in action.
That is not the way it is going.
I know that is not the way it is going. We will have more henchmen.
There were questions about all this and I said in the Seanad that I would look at certain aspects of it. However, we are removing the statutory provision and we want to have one member from local authorities.
I hope it will not be the case that an appointee will have to be a member or a chairperson of a Fianna Fáil cumann before he or she can be considered for one of these jobs. Is this not a ferocious attack on local democracy? The three councillors are being thrown off the boards of directors. It is also wrong headed. Who knows better than local councillors about the economic and social issues of the port areas? When this Bill comes before the Dáil, I will ask the Minister of State to reconsider this aspect.
A related matter is the cutting of the number of employee directors. We have had a great tradition in Dublin and elsewhere in which the employees also had representation on the board, often to very good effect. The Minister of State is preparing to cut the number down to just one employee director. Will he and the senior Minister reconsider this on Committee Stage of the Bill when it comes before this House? Deputy Ahern and I both served on Dublin City Council. We worked closely together on many issues affecting the city——
The Bill is currently before the Seanad, and there is a convention that we do not normally debate potential amendments in this House that may be under discussion in the other House.
I do not think the Minister of State and the Minister realise the enormity of this. There is a meeting this afternoon of the Association of County and City Councils across the street, and they are very upset about this. It is another removal of local democratic powers and it is wrong. The Minister of State was a hard-working councillor, and so was I. We know what we tried to do to represent our people. Is this not a backward step? He must get rid of it.
The whole scene has changed, and we must have consistency. It was the position until the mid 1990s that harbour authorities represented a broad church of people. In some cases, there were 11 councillors on those boards, among others. Various reports since then have stated that there should not be any councillors or port users. The ports are now commercial State organisations like the Dublin Airport Authority. We in the Department are trying to be consistent. It is a different ball game now and we are trying to bring things into line.
As a compromise, it has been agreed that one ministerial appointment would come from the councils, which is a half-way house between the old——
It is no house at all. Whoever is in power puts in their own people.
There have been a few expert reports, which have stated that——
Bureaucrats hate elected people, as the Minister of State knows. This is where all of this is coming from. Councillors have mandates, so let us give them some authority.
I have total respect for councillors. Like the Deputy, I spent 17 years on the council. It is a case of giving them their full status in the appropriate places.
The board representation is being reduced from 12 members to eight. It is intended that there be one worker director rather than two. Most of the ports are very small. Some of them have nearly more on the board than they have as employees.
