Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yes, okay.

There have been meetings with haulage companies. The Department has kept in close contact with road haulage stakeholders throughout the Brexit negotiations, such as the Irish Road Haulage Association, Freight Transport Association Ireland, IBEC, the Irish Exporters Association, and the British Irish Chamber of Commerce. The Department also has been liaising with these bodies in respect of the Commission's no-deal road transport proposal. On Monday, 21 January, the Department hosted a stakeholders' forum for road transport and maritime interests, including industry representative bodies in haulage to inform them of the latest Brexit developments. The Department, together with the Departments of Foreign Affairs and Trade and Agriculture, Food and the Marine and the Revenue Commissioners addressed the group stressing the importance of attendees disseminating the information provided as widely as possible. Similarly, departmental officials took part in a Brexit seminar for local chambers of commerce hosted by Chambers Ireland on 10 January, in order that local chambers could in turn brief their members on developments. On Tuesday, 29 January I met representatives of Freight Transport Association Ireland.

My Department continues to work with the industry representative bodies to keep hauliers and enterprises informed of developments and prospects, in keeping with our long-established practice. We will continue to update the information on the Department's website as further developments occur.

On the issue of the landbridge, there was a question about where capacity would be provided. The landbridge is a problem. We may well sort out all of the other problems to a certain degree, but this is a problem, particularly in the transport of perishable goods, as has been mentioned. We do not quite know how bad it is going to be, but we have taken a lot of measures and precautions and done a lot of work in looking at the alternatives. We are talking about ferries and the capacity to which Deputy Troy alluded. If people stop using the landbridge for various reasons such as that it is too crowded or there are delays, where will they go instead? My officials have met many of the ferry groups, including Irish Ferries, Stena, CLdN, Doyle Shipping Group - I think virtually every one - Brittany Ferries and P&O, to see what capacity is like. Their conclusion is that there is certainly the capacity to substitute for the landbridge, if alternatives are needed. Everybody knows about the W.B Yeats. There is another ferry being bought also. It is thought, therefore, that there will be plenty of spare capacity. However, it is not an exact science because we cannot predict how many are going to move from the landbridge and what the effect will be. They have looked at it very carefully and are confident that there is no need for a more dramatic intervention such as leasing, budgets or anything like it and that there will be capacity. We will have to see how the individual companies will respond to what happens at the landbridge and whether there will be a danger to perishable goods, but there is obviously a difficulty and there will be disruption. The landbridge is shorter and quicker as it stands, but there will be longer journeys on ferries. Let there be no doubt, however, that this issue has been gone into in very great detail. I think I will report back to the Cabinet in the month of February.