Dublin Port Company has said it will pay a dividend of €8.8m to the State from its activities for last year.
The company said the payment represents 30% of its distributable profits for 2014. Since 2007, Dublin Port Company has paid the Government a total of €78.6m in dividends.
It said the dividend payment follows a successful year for Dublin Port as cargo volumes increased by 7% on a yearly basis.
The port's activity returned to the record levels of 2007 with total throughput for the year coming in at 31 million gross tonnes with 7,108 ship arrivals.
Dublin Port Company also said today that figures for the first trading quarter of 2015 have shown continued growth in import and export trade with cargo volumes up 5.3% on the same time last year.
It noted that this was the strongest first quarter Dublin Port has had in ten years and surpasses the previous record year of 2007 by 3%.
The company's chairperson Lucy McCaffrey said that Dublin Port recently financed a €35m redevelopment of the Alexandra Quay Container Terminal and opened a €3.4m trade car terminal at East Wall Road.
"We are now ready to finance our proposed €230m Alexandra Basin Redevelopment Project, the single largest infrastructural investment project in the history of the port, which we hope to commence later this year," she added.
