Madam, - I note with interest both the portfolios of the new Cabinet Ministers and the identified areas of responsibilities of the new Ministers of State. The 20 or so Ministers of State are designated as "having special responsibility" for all kinds of important issues, such as drugs strategy, community affairs, heritage and local government.
But there is one omission - that of marine affairs. While fisheries have now been put in with agriculture and food and there seems to be a certain logic in this, may I respectfully suggest that there is a lot more to marine affairs?
While an ever-increasing amount of our exports are in the form of services, it is still a fact that about €150 billion of merchandise, both exports and imports, must pass though our seaports each year. Therefore, commercial shipping and our commercial seaports are vital to the economy.
Yet we do not have a separate Department of the Marine, or even a Minister of State responsible for marine matters. All we have today to deal with marine matters is a small and increasingly obscure section, buried within the Department of Transport.
Not good enough, in an island nation of ours, whose economy is so heavily dependent for survival on commercial ships and our seaports. - Yours, etc,
TONY AYTON (Retired inspector with the International Transport Workers' Federation), Avondale Lawn, Waterford.