Sensitive issues involved in plans to expand

Labourers risked typhus, cholera and injury to build Dun Laoghaire harbour with granite from Dalkey quarry in the early 19th century. They didn't think of it as a work of art or a tourist attraction. However, artists and writers such as Brian Lalor and Peter Pearson, who is a conservationist and author of several histories of the area, have long sung the praises of Dun Laoghaire's place in Irish heritage.

No longer an active fishing port, the ferryport attracts hundreds of sailors - and thousands of ordinary people who like to walk the piers. Traffic has become a big issue, and one with which Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has had to grapple. But when Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company introduced high parking charges, extending to 9 p.m., it caused local anger. The harbour company argued that it was forced to take some control measures, but it also said the fees were not funding the marina.

"The marina is self-financing," Mr Michael Hanahoe, chief executive of the harbour company, said. "The revenue from parking is being used to maintain and develop the harbour and improve the public slipway." The ladders in the Coal Harbour have been upgraded already.

Specialised car-parks for boat owners are being built, but the company is limited by space. The essential restaurant, chandlery and onshore complex that makes a marina pay will probably be built on the Carlisle Pier when it becomes available, he said.

Maritime historian Dr John de Courcy Ireland believes the root of the current row can be traced to the semi-privatisation of harbours around the coastline.

Introduced by former junior marine minister Mr Eamon Gilmore, the 1996 Harbours Act aimed to break up the fiefdoms that had existed in some ports and to take the political element out of management. However, in establishing self-financing semi-state companies, he may have "transferred control from one monopoly to another", Dr de Courcy Ireland said.

Dr de Courcy Ireland is familiar with the French coastline and has seen how marinas can work when run by local authorities. Smallscale State marinas here include the highly successful Dingle marina in Co Kerry.

The Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company has three local authority representatives on its board - Ms Jane Dillon-Byrne (Lab), Ms Betty Coffey (FF) and Mr Donal Marren (FG) - and there are two worker directors and several representatives of the local economy.

Most of the members of the Dun Laoghaire Harbour Company board are not sailors. Nor are there many maritime links. Neither Stena Line nor the Commissioners of Irish Lights - main users of the port - is represented.

Mr Hanahoe said there was a very high level of expertise, skill and local knowledge on the panel. "I'd like to think we would be judged on the job we do, not on our sailing expertise," he said.