Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Mr. Lacey said there will be a need for a renegotiation and for adjustments to the supply chain. I am back to the same question of whether the State intervention and the involvement of the Irish Maritime Development Office should have a more proactive and collaborative approach to ensure there is a conversation between the ports, ferries, hauliers and representatives of business, as much as that can be done. We all accept there will have to be changes and moves but we need to ensure that everybody can get enough out of it and that is accepting that some of these measures will have a cost factor and other factors will be involved. If we were to listen to the port companies previously, they did not want to get into the conversation but they said that they had engaged with the ferry companies and it suited the ferry companies to operate at the times they operate, which creates difficulties for ports and hauliers in the sense of three or four ferries all arriving at the one time and the gridlock that would cause in a normal time.

If we are talking about 1 January on, it could be absolute bedlam. It is a matter of ensuring that those conversations happen and that the best plans can be put in place. Could I get Mr. Lacey's opinion as to whether that requires State intervention and his opinion on anything the IMDO could do to facilitate that?