Seamus McLoughlin, Head of Operations, Dublin Port Company
I HAVE ALWAYS had an interest in the sea. I started my career as an engineering cadet with Irish Shipping and have had this position for the last five years. It's a pretty responsible job, in that if anything goes wrong it's my fault.
We have a 250-hectare site, and our job is to facilitate the movement of goods. Around 31 million tonnes of cargo came through here last year. Three-quarters of the containers that come into the State come through us - and 80 per cent of the roll-on roll-off cargo.
I'm up every morning at 5.30am and leave the house at 6am. After a lifetime spent at sea early starts don't bother me. My first meeting is usually at 7.30am with my head of security. We just spent €3 million on a CCTV system, and the level of crime has dropped dramatically as a result. It used to be a very big problem. They'd be stealing brand new cars from the compound or hitching lorries to containers and driving off.
After 9/11 we signed up to a new international security code. People realised that what hijackers did with aeroplanes they could do with tankers, so security has been ramped up enormously.
Once that meeting's over I'll go through e-mails and meet my engineering manager to see how things are going with various projects. Next up is the harbour-master meeting.
After that I'll be writing reports or working on new designs for projects. At the moment a lot of my time is taken up with a 21-hectare reclamation project at the northeast end of the port.
At some stage I'll make a point of getting in my car and driving around the place, just to get an overview of what's going on. It's also good to let the guys see I'm watching, too.
We run a very clean operation here, so I can't stand seeing dirty cargo operations: things blowing into the water or refuelling spillages.
The hours change a lot, in that if something comes up it's all hands to the pump, like when a ramp broke down over the bank holiday, just before a ship was due in. We worked through the night to sort it. Keeping things moving, that's the key here.
In the afternoon I might be running a training exercise in conjunction with the emergency services. We hold all the fuel for Dublin Airport here, so we take safety and security very seriously.
We're in a good position now to cope with an emergency. If something happened we have systems in place to have the port closed down within one minute.
I'm normally home between 7pm and 8pm, and, now that I don't dive any more, my hobby is DIY. I find it relaxing. If you've got central heating to install, or doors to hang, I'm your man.
• In conversation with Sandra O'Connell
• Dublin Port Company is hosting a family open day at the Port Centre, on Alexandra Road, from 10am until 4pm today, with a carnival, face-painters, balloon- makers, competitions and coach tours of the port