Profits before tax at Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company doubled last year to almost €2.5 million, but increased insurance costs hit underlying growth, the commercial State body said yesterday.

In a statement, the State-owned company charged with managing the country's busiest ferry port said total pre-tax profits at end 2002 were €2.47 million, an increase of 94 per cent on the previous year.

Managing director Mr Michael Hanahoe told The Irish Times that the increase was largely due to the fact that its 2001 figures were hit by a number of exceptional items.

He said that, between 1997 when Dún Laoghaire was incorporated and 2001, underlying profits grew by 12 per cent year-on-year. However, this figure slipped to 10 per cent last year. Mr Hanahoe blamed a doubling of insurance costs for the fall.

However, underlying profit growth still outstripped sales. Turnover in 2002 was €9.47 million, up 8 per cent on 2001, when it came in at €8.75 million.

The company said that the main contributor to increased turnover was a 37 per cent increase in income from non-ferry activities, which for the first time included licence fee income from the development of its harbour yard site.

Mr Hanahoe predicted that this trend would continue. Income from passenger ferry services, a result of its deal with Stena Line, which operates the Holyhead route from the harbour, accounted for 75 per cent of sales last year. But Mr Hanahoe said that this would decrease as an overall share of turnover in the medium term.

"We would see our non-shipping revenue growing to 50 per cent of the total in the medium term," he said. "That would include our income from marine leisure, our pay-and-display parking service and our landlordship in the harbour."

At the same time, he predicted that income from passenger services would, at the very least, remain stable. The company is currently negotiating a deal with Stena Line that will see it signing up for another five years. More than one million passengers passed through Dún Laoghaire last year, making it the country's premier ferry port.

The harbour expects to maintain this position and is on course to generate sales in the region of €10 million in 2003. A recent Supreme Court ruling declaring that the country's harbour companies are not liable for local authority rates for the period from 1999 to 2002 will boost profits this year.

The company set aside €2.4 million as a contingency against an unfavourable judgment, and most of this will be released into its profit and loss account for 2003.

Along with its role as the commercial manager of Dún Laoghaire, the company is also the custodian of the harbour's historic buildings. Most of it was built between 1817 and 1842.

A recent analysis suggests that maintaining the historic elements of the harbour will cost €12 million over the coming years. It will have to fund this from its own resources.

Mr Hanahoe said that the company had so far successfully managed its conservation role at no cost to the taxpayer.

This week it sought proposals for the re-development of the Carlisle Pier. The harbour company and Dún Laoghaire/Rathdown County Council want the plan to include a landmark waterside building and said in a statement that the building would house a "cultural attraction of national importance".

CB Hamilton Osborne King is acting as agent for the development. It has placed notices in national newspapers and the Official Journal of the European Community. The deadline for submissions is October 1st.

Following an evaluation, shortlisted applicants will be invited to submit detailed plans, and there will be public consultation process in early 2004. Based on this process, the company will choose a preferred bidder in February.

The Carlisle Pier site covers around 2.25 acres. It was built between 1855 and 1859. A rail operated to there until 1980 and it was the main pier for Holyhead-bound ferries until 1995, when high-speed craft were introduced on the route, and a new dedicated terminal for these vessels was opened.

As part of its conservation mandate, Dún Laoghaire Harbour Company has restored the harbour's Victorian fountain and recently dedicated an area around it to the workers who built it in the 19th century.