Light Dues

I am very grateful to you, Mr. Olner. This is the point: the shipping industry put its faith in the Government to honour the commitments that were made in 2004. They promised to abolish the Irish lights subsidy and to take steps to eliminate the duplication of services provided by the three lighthouse authorities, but they have blatantly failed to honour those commitments. Eliminating the Irish subsidy alone would virtually solve the anticipated deficit in the general lighthouse fund, and requiring the general lighthouse authorities to implement a 5 per cent. cut in operating costs would eliminate the deficit altogether. I fully support the efforts of the noble Lord Berkeley, who has introduced a Bill in the other place that would require the Government to remove the Irish subsidy and rationalise the three general lighthouse authorities.