Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 29 April 2015
9. Deputy Richard Boyd Barrett asked the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if, in his upcoming Harbours (Amendment) Bill for ports of regional significance, he plans references to "the council" to mean the executives of the relevant council or the elected members of that council; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [16513/15]
View answerSince 2011 when I was elected to this Dáil I have posed dozens of questions to the Minister and his predecessor about what I believe to be the gross mismanagement that is going on in Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company. I have raised the enormous waste of money on crazy, madcap plans that nobody ever asked for, the latest of which is a plan to mortgage the assets of the harbour to raise €18 million to build a cruise ship berth. There is a complete lack of accountability at Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company.
Now that the harbour company is finally going to move under the control of the local authority, I ask the Minister to assure the House that in the forthcoming Bill dealing with this matter, the company will be under direct council control and will no longer be an unaccountable semi-quango, a law unto itself and a company about which we cannot get any answers. Will he assure us that it will be under direct public control?
The drafting of the Harbours Bill 2015 is almost complete and I will be seeking Government approval very soon to publish the Bill. The Bill will provide the legislative basis to one of the national ports policy's key recommendations, namely that governance of the designated ports of regional significance vest in more appropriate local authority-led governance structures. As the Deputy is aware, the five ports of regional significance are Drogheda, Dún Laoghaire, Galway, New Ross and Wicklow.
The Bill is designed to provide maximum legislative flexibility. It will not prescribe the model of transfer but will allow for the most appropriate model of governance in respect of each individual company to be chosen. The optimal manner of transfer is one which finds broad consensus and agreement between parties. The actual transfer of the companies will be made under later statutory instrument.
The two models of transfer will be the retention of the existing company structure and a transfer of the Ministerial shareholding in the company; or the dissolution of the existing company structure and transfer of all assets, liabilities and employees into local authority structures. Where the company structure is retained and the shareholding of that company transferred to the local authority, the Bill will provide for the amendment of the existing Harbours Acts to reflect that transfer. Obviously, under this type of transfer there is a need to ensure the appropriate balance between the freedom and requirements of a commercial port and council oversight. The Bill will specify the differing roles of the executive and the elected members of a council in this type of arrangement. As an example, the Bill will contain a section requiring chairpersons and CEOs to appear before the elected members to give an account of their administration of that company if invited to appear by the elected members. Obviously under the other method of transfer, the company is dissolved and the port will be administered as a functional area of a local authority.
I would strongly urge the latter option for Dún Laoghaire. That is the point I am making. I have heard about these two options for quite some time. The harbour company, with its executive and board, needs to be dissolved. There are enormous savings to be made in executive salaries and expenses, some of which were falsely claimed and never repaid, not to mention the hundreds of thousands of euro that have been wasted on crazy master plans that never came to fruition, that nobody ever asked for and that would have been completely inappropriate. Money has been wasted in all sorts of ways, which I do not have time to enumerate now. The company is leeching money out of the harbour. It has run the harbour into the ground, as evidenced by the loss of the Stena Lines ferry service. Now we have another crazy plan, hatched by a so-called "stakeholder group" to mortgage the assets of Dún Laoghaire harbour to the tune of €18 million to build a giant cruise berth for luxury cruise liners. A planning permission application has been submitted but there is no business plan. The People Before Profit Councillor Melisa Halpin asked to see the business plan but there is none.
I can show it to the Minister some time. This is the crazy stuff that is going on. There are no minutes taken by the members of the little cabal that are hatching this plan. We have asked if there are minutes of any of their meetings. They go off on junkets to the United States. There are no minutes.
I will come back to the Deputy. I call the Minister now.
It has to be dissolved.
It is a real pity that the Deputy has to use language such as "cabal" and "leeching" when talking about a group of people who are working within governance structures to secure a future for Dún Laoghaire Harbour. I have already outlined to the Deputy the model under which a port like Dún Laoghaire will be integrated into the local authority. I will take the decision on the manner in which that integration will take place.
I have the greatest respect for the work that the management of Dún Laoghaire Harbour is doing. It has faced many challenges in the past and is looking to create a sustainable plan to develop the port in the future. The way in which that work will be integrated into the local authority will be made in the manner I have just outlined to the Deputy.
I am very serious about this. There is a rebellion taking place in Dún Laoghaire. A public meeting this week was packed. There is overwhelming anger against this plan. Save Our Seafront, a group in which I am involved, is having another meeting tomorrow which, I think, will be absolutely packed. Protests will almost certainly follow because of extraordinary anger at the fact that it is a cabal. What would the Minister call a group of three people who are accountable to nobody, who do not take minutes of meetings, who go off on junkets and who come up with plans that will have a massive effect on the harbour, potentially threatening it with privatisation because it involves mortgaging the assets? They do not take minutes of the meetings and when we ask questions about what they are doing we are told: "We're not giving you the answers." That is what is going on and it is not acceptable.
Let us consider the state of the harbour. It has lost Stena. Hundreds of thousands of euro have been lost on master plans that just dissolved into thin air. It is crazy stuff.
I thank the Deputy.
In the interests of democracy and in the best interests of this important amenity and the Dún Laoghaire area generally, we should dissolve the harbour board and bring it under direct public control where there is real accountability and genuine public input into the plans to develop and protect this harbour as a unique public amenity.
The Deputy's language of describing a group of people as a cabal is unacceptable.
Should I take the Minister to a meeting?
The Minister has the floor.
I am struck that whenever I make a genuine attempt to respond to matters that I accept are of interest, the colour of the Deputy's language intensifies and the pitch of his voice gets higher.
It is because I am annoyed.
These are important matters that need to be dealt with. As I have said in the House already, it is very important that an acceptable and secure plan is developed for the future of Dún Laoghaire Harbour. There is a group of people at the harbour who are working very hard to deliver that. I have outlined how I will deal with its integration in the future. As I have said, regardless of any views on the plan they propose, the Deputy's language is inappropriate in terms of how he is describing them. I will look at the model I have described and I will make a decision on how it is integrated into the local authority.
Deputy Kyne is next because Deputy Jim Daly is not present.
