Expenses 'excessive' at harbour company

ALLEGATIONS THAT Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company board directors have been charging excessive expenses are to be investigated by Minister for Transport Leo Varadkar.

People before Profit TD for Dún Laoghaire Richard Boyd Barrett said directors were involved in “serious milking and abuse of expenses”, adding that one claim was for €1,300 to travel to a meeting in Dún Laoghaire from Cork.

“There are eight meetings a year and now someone is claiming expenses from Dubai,” he added.

Mr Varadkar said he would look into the matter, adding that “we cannot have a situation where the board of a company is behaving in one way when it expects its staff and others to make sacrifices to save the company”.

The Minister said he had to deal with a similar issue in the Dublin Airport Authority and he would deal with the situation in Dún Laoghaire if need be.

Mr Boyd Barrett said the 2007 profit-and-loss account showed that a director living in Dalkey had claimed €458 to travel to Dún Laoghaire eight times a year.

In 2008, when he was living in Cork, he claimed €1,300 per meeting to travel from there.

“The fare for a return train journey to Cork is €71, and it costs €25 for a taxi from Heuston Station to Dún Laoghaire and probably a similar amount for a taxi in Cork,” Mr Boyd Barrett said.

“That totals approximately €170, yet he claimed €1,300.”

In February 2009, he said, the chief executive of Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company used the company credit card to bring guests, partners and so on for dinner and accommodation in the Royal Marine Hotel, Dún Laoghaire, even though most of them lived in the area.

Mr Boyd Barrett claimed that €450,000 was paid to consultants for “fantastic, unrealisable plans”, which equated to a cost of €10,000 daily for a company losing a similar amount and asking workers to take swingeing pay cuts.

“It is unacceptable,” he added. “Jobs are being slaughtered while people at the top are abusing expenses.”

Mr Varadkar said it was incorrect to say the company was losing €10,000 daily.

He added that Mr Boyd Barrett claimed €12,000 a year to travel between Dún Laoghaire and Dublin. “I am not sure how much the train costs but it is much less than that,” he said.

Mr Boyd Barrett replied: “I do not use that money; it goes into a campaign fund.”

Earlier, Mr Boyd Barrett appealed to the Minister to put as much pressure as he could on Stena Line to pull back from downgrading to a seasonal service from Dún Laoghaire.

The absence of a proper year-round service would make a mockery of efforts to improve the tourism infrastructure.

“It has been a vital route in and out of the country and I do not believe for a minute that it is unviable,” he said.

“Fuel costs could be reduced by using a different ship.”

Mr Varadkar said that when he made contact with Stena Line representatives, he would put whatever pressure he could on them on the matter.

He added that a service was provided all year round from Dublin Port, which was 20 minutes up the road.

Stena Line, he said, was withdrawing the service from Dún Laoghaire because there were not enough passengers to sustain it, given the costs associated with operating a fast boat with high fuel costs while carrying a few paying passengers.

Mr Varadkar said that over recent years, the harbour company had been restructuring its business to keep it on a sustainable financial footing and to enable the harbour to develop and operate on a commercial basis in the future. This had inevitably led to job losses, he added.