Mr. Paul Kelly:

Sorry, I forgot about that question. We have been very consistent in what we have said. Going back many months and into last year, we expressed many concerns and did not accept the view that there was sufficient capacity on the direct routes, particularly for agrifood, where we required accompanied roll on-roll off. Certainly, there was a lot of capacity for the load on-load off of containers, and unaccompanied roll on-roll off, which takes place where the trailered unit is taken onto the ferry and taken off on the other side. However, at the same time, despite our concerns, we were told that the market would be able to respond quickly. That does seem to have been the case since the turn of the year. We have seen a substantial increase in capacity. We still have a concern that more capacity is needed but, in a sense, it is going to be for the market to respond to that need and to provide that capacity. It has been heartening to see the speed at which it has responded to that. However, there are a couple of points to be made.

The land bridge still remains essential. It is the quickest route to market. There are many concerns, particularly about Calais. It will be some months before those concerns are fully allayed, if they are completely allayed. Second, by taking the land bridge, a huge amount of sanitary and phytosanitary, SPS, and customs administration measures must be put in place. Those are, by and large, permanent. They are part of the outcome of the decision of the UK to leave the customs union and the Single Market. Companies are using some alternative land bridge routes, particularly east of England, to Holland and so on. Again, the journey times are longer there but it may be more beneficial depending on which markets in continental Europe one wants to hit. We will need a combination of the land bridge and more direct route capacity. It is hard to see the ratio that will form but it needs to be a priority issue because ultimately it boils down to the ability of Irish food companies to serve their customers on the continent in a consistent and timely fashion. It is an easy thing to say but that requires a number of options to be available to those companies.