Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Yes and those issues are being taken into account in the national spatial plan that is being developed. The main route to the Continent is not direct ferry services at present, even though there is significant container traffic out of Waterford Port and Rosslare, it is using the UK as the land bridge, as it is called whereby people drive across. I cannot see how that would not be maintained because if one looks at the situation in Italy where every day thousands of trucks drive through Switzerland in both directions carrying goods and services from Italy to Germany and France and so on and they have an arrangement whereby one seals the truck so that it does not have to be physically examined and there are legal arrangements that apply. What I found while negotiating in Europe over the years is that if one can find a space in the European legal spectrum one can bolt a new project onto it. It seems to me that if such traffic can be managed between Italy and across Switzerland and the bigger European countries we can continue to use the land bridge. If there is a free trade area between the UK and the European Union there is one set of difficulties but if there are tariffs there is a bigger set of difficulties. If there are tariffs one would need a big expansion in Dublin Port and other ports. It would probably be prudent to have extra ferry services from the south east as well for direct access to the Continent.

I was talking to the British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Philip Hammond, about it and he told me that if it reverted to World Trade Organization regimes they would need about four years to put the investment that would be required into the port of Dover to handle the general customs activity that would be generated. They are looking at very long timeframes. It depends on where it lands; if we are into a tariff situation there will be a lot of investment consequences. If there is free trade the consequences are more limited. To go back to a previous question, the fright we have got from Brexit should, arguably, be taken on board and we should diversify our markets and make sure we have direct access to the Continent.