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Since the UK government removed Britain (but not Northern Ireland) from the EU single market and customs union at the start of last year, there has been a significant change on the movement of goods through Irish ports.
Direct shipments to mainland Europe from Rosslare have increased by 55% for roll on-roll off (RORO) lorries and fridges as exporters switched from using the land bridge through Britain and the Dublin to Holyhead ferry route.
On the face of it, this looks like a loss for Dublin Port and a gain for Rosslare Port but it isn’t quite as simple as that, according to Dublin Port chief executive Eamonn O’Reilly in an interview with the Irish Farmers Journal.
He explained that Dublin Port is “an infrastructure provider” that facilitates imports and exports of goods.
Ports don’t compete with each other in the same way, for example, the Jack Lynch tunnel in Cork doesn’t compete with the Dublin Port tunnel. They are both infrastructures that accommodate road traffic with the demand set by what is going on in either place at any particular time.
Single market created trade boom
O’Reilly explains that the creation of the single market in 1992 was “an extraordinary creation of politics” and alongside a restructure of dock labour and selling B+I to Irish Continental ferries caused a boom in trade that continued with record year-on-year growth up until 2007.
There was a blip following the financial crash but growth resumed in 2012 and continued at an annual rate of 5% up to 2020 for RORO reaching 1.060m units and 4.6% for the container traffic.
There was a large drop in RORO traffic in 2021 as exporters find Rosslare more convenient for deliveries to the rest of the EU and Larne and Belfast more convenient for business to and from Britain.
This, O’Reilly believes, is a reversal of the pattern created by the single market for the past 30 years.
However, he also points out that while there was a 6.7% drop in RORO business in the first nine months of 2021 compared with 2020, in the same period there was a 15.4% increase in the volume of lift-on, lift-off container traffic.
He sees this more than offsetting any reduction in RORO business and expects the overall port volumes to resume their upward trends in 2023 or 2024 and the port company is investing accordingly.
He remains confident that the target of 3.3% growth projected in the 2010–2040 master plan will be delivered, reaching a capacity of 77m tonnes gross. This would be a 27-fold increase in business over the ninety years since 1950. He sees Brexit as a blip in the same way the financial crash was after 2007.
There is no doubt about the confidence of Dublin Port in the future but what about managing Brexit in the early days of 2021? O’Reilly explains that from day one after the UK referendum, they set about preparing for the UK leaving the customs union and single market with trade reverting to the pre-1992 model.
This meant substantial investment in facilities within the port area and an area the size of 20 football pitches was prepared to handle the increased administration.
After almost a year, he feels that half of this area will be adequate to manage the business so, if anything, they were over prepared in hindsight but that couldn’t be accurately predicted in advance.
A chance simply couldn’t be taken with Brexit that had the potential to bring gridlock to Dublin city and the surrounding road network.
Demand for ports down to population and economic growth
Ports are like road and rail, an essential part of the national distribution infrastructure.
Demand for their service adjusts to reflect the trade of the moment. Hence Rosslare suits direct RORO deliveries to the EU, Belfast and Larne suit deliveries to the UK.
Overall demand for ports is a factor of population and economic growth and with both forecast to continue expanding in the decades ahead, demand for overall port capacity will increase on the island of Ireland with the pattern of businesses adjusting to reflect the trade of the moment.
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