Whitegate oil refinery seen as ‘a milking cow’

Cork Harbour Commissioners (CHC) regarded the State’s only oil refinery at Whitegate as “a milking cow”, a confidential document from 1983 reveals.

A government memo on Whitegate recorded that in 1982 the then minister for transport John Wilson had to amend CHC’s proposed harbour dues because they “bore too heavily on the oil trade”.

It claimed new proposals submitted by the CHC a year later would see 90% of its revenue come from the oil trade.