Mr. Aidan Coffey:

In terms of the opening hours of the ports, Rosslare Europort and the port of Dunkirk will both be operable 24 hours, seven days a week, so I do not see any reason the other ports would not be able to do it. One of the reasons we selected Rosslare Europort and Dunkirk was for their accessibility, not just for the road networks going into them, but also for the access at all times.

In terms of whether anything can be done, there is considerable cost in setting up a new route, not just this route, and I am sure Mr. Mathieu will agree that applies in regard to setting up any route. There is considerable cost to setting up these routes and, of course, there could be some level of assistance or subsistence. This is not necessarily on the actual routes themselves but one of the situations we have in Dunkirk is where there are clandestines and illegal immigrants, we have to put in place significant infrastructure to ensure that no illegal migrants come on board the vessels or into the trailers belonging to the hauliers that are going to use our service. The Department of Foreign Affairs or the Department of the Taoiseach might be able to offer some level of assistance to try to help new routes that are developing.

I know there are various different funds, such as the Brexit fund and other funds, but none of these funds will assist anything in transport. We had approached Enterprise Ireland, the IDA and many different Departments, and there is the Brexit fund. At this point, I do not think the Brexit fund has been fully utilised or fully used up, primarily because it is for existing stakeholders, which do not have to prove they need assistance, and those funds are just sitting idle in the banks, because the banks control them and they are not actually releasing the funds to the companies and people that need them. Yes, we approached the Brexit fund on several occasions and we were point-blank told there was no assistance whatsoever, and that included the various other Departments. We have progressed this project throughout the whole process, from the outset, based on our own private funds, with no assistance from any Government Department.