No case for privatising Port of Belfast
Sinn Féin Assembly Regional Development Spokesperson Pat McNamee has said that there is no case for the privatisation of the Port of Belfast and that the port such be restructured to ensure greater public control and accountability.
``The Port of Belfast is probably the most important of the five key ports in the north of Ireland because of its strategic location in the heart of the Belfast Metropolitan area,'' said McNamee. ``The reason that Trust Ports (such as the Port of Belfast) were established was because there was a lack of investment in private ports at key stages in the industrial revolution. There is no evidence from recently privatised ports in England that there has been any change in private sector port management over the last 150 years.
``Privatisation of ports in Britain in the 1980s and 1990s has largely been shown to have resulted in profits for shareholders but less investment in port infrastructure. We cannot allow this to happen to Belfast Port at such a key moment in the economic development of the city, the north of Ireland and Ireland as a whole.
``The Belfast Harbour Commissioner's position on privatisation contains a number of contradictions. There has been no independent or public critical analysis of the Commissioner's projections for the next 30 years, particularly given that the EU predicts a doubling of port traffic in the next 12 years. I would urge the Minister Gregory Campbell to act immediately on this.
``Sinn Féin believes that competition between ports could be encouraged by transferring port control to local District Councils in each of the five key port areas (Belfast, Larne, Derry, Warrenpoint and Coleraine) - with the parallel establishment of a Port Authority within the Department for Regional Development with an oversight role. This could be one way of a more detailed examination of the broader management options in line with Option 3D currently being considered.''
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