Mr. Liam Lacey:

I think I have dealt comprehensively with the issue of the renegotiation and adjustment to supply chains. If one is stepping outside a known system, namely, the land bridge, that has a transit time of, say, 18 to 20 hours, all the alternatives are slower. One therefore needs to work around that by renegotiating supply chains and making the necessary adjustments. To do otherwise would be just to bury one's head in the sand and hope it will be okay. We are very much of the opinion that importers and exporters need to know the realities, including the realities of the alternatives that are available to them, so they can make those choices. We have been advocating this for a very long time.

In the report a recommendation is made on scenario and contingency planning. In that process, and with the Department, we have looked at and continue on an ongoing basis to look at what might happen. If the market does not respond in the way in which we want it to respond, what happens then? It is entirely unhelpful, in the context of a functioning market, to set out a priority that there will be State intervention because the market is demonstrably capable of doing its job. I do not say this because of any misunderstanding of how the shipping industry behaves. I am very familiar with the shipping industry. I know it is driven by commercial imperatives and not by a sense of altruism. It will do what is in its interest from a commercial point of view, and it is in the interest of shipping companies to follow demand and to service that demand. If that demand is not being adequately serviced or if there are superior ways of addressing the demand, new entrants are free to come in. That very much characterises the response from DFDS. There is an operator that feels it can provide a better solution than the solutions currently available. I assume that that is the premise of its business plan, that this will be successful because it will do things better and differently from current operators. If that is the case, it will succeed.

As for the operating times of ferries, and in response to a question from Deputy Verona Murphy earlier, I alluded to a previous career with Irish Continental Group. With the issue of scheduling and the timing of arrivals and departures, one deals with mobile assets. These things can be changed, but one changes them in response to market conditions. It is a particularly difficult thing with ro-pax services, where the interests of both passengers and freight are combined on one single service and there is an attempt to strike a balance that will meet the requirements of both markets. It is less difficult with freight-only operators, which can attend to the singular requirements of a freight market without having to consider the requirements of a passenger market. Again, my experience with the market is that the times that deliver most for consumers are the times during which shipping companies operate. There is no logic in suggesting they would want to do otherwise. They operate at times when the demand is at its maximum and they satisfy the greatest number of customers, whether freight-only customers or a combination of both freight and passengers. I hope that helps with Deputy Ó Murchú's questions.