I move:—
"In Section 15, page 8, line 52, to delete all from the word ‘and' to the words ‘the Chairman,' in line 54."
It might be well if I explained the object of the amendment. I am sure most Senators have not read this Bill, but the object underlying this, and the subsequent amendments, is to prevent a limited liability company from having the right to nominate a representative on a local authority. The position, as far as I understand it, is this, that the Dundalk Harbour Board promoted a Bill. In order to get the Bill through they had to come to agreements with persons who own a portion of the quays in Dundalk. In the original draft of the Bill the portal authorities did not make provision that one of the companies trading to the port should have the right conferred on it by statute to nominate a representative on this local authority. In order to stall off the opposition of one of the private limited companies in possession of portion of the Dundalk quays, who put the screw on the port authority, the authority was compelled to insert in the Bill a clause giving this limited company the right to nominate a representative under the seal of the company, who would be, ipso facto, a member of the local authority, and would have the same privileges and powers as any other member, whether elected or nominated. During the Committee Stage I objected to this clause, and the learned counsel who was appearing in support of the Bill stated that there were precedents for such a course as this. I said that as far as I was aware it was unprecedented to confer a right by statute on any limited company to nominate a representative on a local authority. The learned counsel afterwards admitted that he could not find any precedent.
I move these amendments because of the fact that the qualifications for the franchise for the election of members of the Dundalk port authority are, in the first place, resident within a radius of five miles of the courthouse in Dundalk, living in and paying rates for a house with a Poor Law Valuation of £20, or owning £100 stock in any steamship company trading to the port.
I want to draw the attention of the Seanad to the undemocratic nature of the franchise, because in the first place the great bulk of the people who live in Dundalk and the surrounding districts and who do not own premises of a £20 valuation, are debarred from the right to elect people who control the port of Dundalk. The livelihood of these people may depend on that port. You have the position that a person who may live in Timbuctoo but who may happen to have £100 worth of shares in any steamship company trading to the port has the franchise. Further than that, the persons who are eligible to be elected to the port authority must have the franchise or be persons owning £100 worth of stock in any of the shipping companies trading to the port. It is perhaps the most undemocratic proposal I ever heard of in my life to confer the right by statute on a company trading in the port to nominate any person they desire to be a member of the port authority of Dundalk. I say it is undemocratic, it is unprecedented, and it is setting up a very dangerous precedent if you are going to give any limited company a right that they shall nominate a representative on a local authority.
It is a notorious fact that the port of Dublin is run by the shipping companies who are trading in the port. But if they run the port they get elected on the franchise that is in existence. There is no right there conferred on any company by statute to nominate a representative on the Board. They must go through the ordinary form of election. No doubt they are sure of being elected because they control the votes—some of them control 1,500 votes. In Dundalk, however, they do not even go through the formality of being elected. There they seek to get the right by statute for a company to elect under seal a member of the port's authority, even while the majority of the people who live in Dundalk have not the right to vote for the election of anybody. Was there ever anything so undemocratic in any democratic country? I ask the Seanad to consider what is at stake in this. I have no animus in the matter. I have not mentioned the name of the company. It is not a question of animus. It is a question of principle. There is a big principle at stake. I ask the Seanad to support the amendment down in my name, which means that no company shall have a right conferred on them by statute to have a person elected to act on the port authority of Dundalk. They have, as I said before, the means of being elected in the ordinary way without having conferred on them the right of directly nominating a representative.
