A High Court decision that the Port of Cork Company is not liable for rates will have a knock-on effect for about 11 of the most important harbours in the State.
The valuation tribunal decided a year ago that the company which controls Cork harbour was liable for rates. This followed a decision by the former Cork Harbour Commissioners to become a private company under the Harbours Act 1996.
The 1996 legislation provides that private companies may be established under the Companies Acts to make better provision for the management, control, operation and development of certain harbours within the State. It was claimed the Cork company, as a result of the legislative change, was not precluded from making "a private profit". The Commissioner of Valuation asked the High Court whether he was right in holding that rates were payable.
In a reserved judgment yesterday, Mr Justice Kearns said the valuation tribunal had decided there was nothing in the 1996 Act which precluded a company such as the Cork company making a profit and accumulating capital for any purpose. It had held the company could appropriate assets to specific purposes either conditionally or unconditionally.
The tribunal held the primary use of the harbour was to meet the needs and demands of users of the port who paid charges, that it was not for use for the public at large and that the company was not precluded from making "a private profit". Cork was one of 12 commercial ports. Other ports in private ownership, such as Greenore and Rosslare, were rateable.
Mr Justice Kearns said there was no dispute that the day-to-day user of the Cork port was precisely the same as before; no organisation or member of the public was denied access and charges continued to be levied on those using the port in precisely the same way as before the introduction of the 1996 Act. It also seemed clear that no private interest or benefit was taken under the new statutory arrangements.
While it was true the Cork company did not carry on business entirely without expectation of profit, it was "emphatically" not a private profit-making company, he said.