The Supreme Court has cleared the way for the closure and sale of two wharves in Waterford port after finding that the Port of Waterford Company has power to sell parts of the harbour.
Trawler owners O'F Fishing Ltd, Kilmore Quay, Co Wexford, had initiated the proceedings aimed at preventing the Port of Waterford Company closing two wharves - the North Wharf and Frank Cassin Wharf - in that port to fishing vessels or stopping the proposed sale of the wharves.
The Attorney General was subsequently joined to the action as a plaintiff and, because the Supreme Court appeal against the High Court's refusal to stop the sale of the two wharves focused on public law issues, the Attorney General was essentially the appellant before the Supreme Court.
A contract for the sale of the two wharves was due to close in March 2005 but was deferred due to the legal action.
The port company argued that the plaintiffs had known for years of its intention to close and sell the two wharves and pleaded that fishing vessels would be able to moor in another part of its port, in designated fishing harbours, in Rosslare and other ports.
In the High Court last November, Mr Justice Éamon de Valera found that the company was entitled to sell the two wharves and held that fishing could be accommodated at the port company's new facilities at Belview, Co Kilkenny.
Upholding that decision yesterday, Mr Justice Nial Fennelly, giving the judgment of the three-judge Supreme Court, said that while the appellants had produced "a veritable treatise" on the complex history of Waterford port, the key legal issue was whether the company might exercise a power of sale.
While the company had emphasised the effects on it of the closure and sale of the wharves, the appeal was not concerned with private rights or interests, the judge stressed. Claims that fishermen "from time immemorial" have landed fish in the harbour had no relevance.
The general tenor of the 1996 Harbours Act was that the former harbour authorities were to be transformed into companies with powers appropriate to the performance of public functions but approximating much more to commercial enterprises than the public bodies they replaced, the judge said.
While the 1996 Act required the company to have an objective of "providing facilities, services, accommodation and lands in its harbour for ships, goods and passengers as it considered necessary", no obligation to that effect was imposed.
Mr Justice Fennelly said it was not necessary in this appeal for the court to reach definitive conclusions on the extent of the obligations by the 1996 Act on new port companies. The appeal concerned only the rights of the public in general and was not concerned with refusal of access to O'F Fishing of the facilities of Waterford port.