Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 13 January 2021
37. Deputy Neale Richmond asked the Tánaiste and Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment the efforts being undertaken to encourage Irish exporters to avoid using the land bridge through the UK and to ship directly to continental Europe; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1108/21]
View answerThe Government has highlighted for some considerable period, the additional hurdles that businesses would have to overcome if using the UK Landbridge to move goods to or from European markets. With the UK as a third country since 1 January, businesses could be faced with new delays at UK ports when seeking to travel to the Continent.
For this reason, Government has strongly encouraged businesses to trial the use of direct ferry services to Europe to avoid all of the administrative overheads and attendant delays that using the UK Landbridge could involve.
The Irish Maritime Development Office (IMDO) published an updated report in November 2020 pointing to sufficient capacity on existing direct sailings to Europe for freight traffic to/from Ireland. However, in discussions with ferry operators, Government also established that in the event of additional demand emerging, ferry operators would respond and increase direct services to continental Europe in line with demand.
A communications campaign run by the IMDO in late 2020 asked businesses to assess their post-Brexit shipping needs and communicate their new requirements to the shipping companies. Full details of the IMDO campaign ACT (Assess, Communicate, Trial) and, and information on new routes, is available from the IMDO on the Gov.ie/Brexit website.
The responsiveness of ferry operators is evident given additional capacity on direct ferry services that has now been put in place, as well as new services introduced between Ireland and continental Europe since early January. Direct services include:
- A daily Roll on Roll off service from Ireland to Cherbourg available - with Irish Ferries and Stena Line having changed their schedules to minimise overlapping;
- Stena Line put an additional ship on the Rosslare to Cherbourg route from 4 January 2021;
- DFDS’s new service from Rosslare to Dunkirk commenced on 2 January 2021 and involves six weekly departures from each port with a crossing time of 24 hours; and
- CLdN added a second weekly service from Cork to Zeebrugge to cope with the increasing demand on this route.
These new sailings are in addition to a number of other new services and increased sailings that came on stream last year including new Roll on Roll off services from Ireland to Zeebrugge, Santander and Portugal by CLdN.
The new direct services that have been introduced to northern France, have a weekly capacity of roughly 2,500 units (standard shipping containers) when unaccompanied trailers are included. The new additional service from Cork to Zeebrugge adds approximately 300 units per week once unaccompanied trailers are included.
Take up of these new services has been very strong with Rosslare Europort reporting a significant increase on freight on the direct routes to Continental Europe routes during the first week of January. Conversely, traffic on Irish Sea routes decreased.
These new range of options will help businesses assess what routes are right for them and so avoid potential congestion and delays they would have experienced by using the UK Landbridge.
