Mr. David McArdle:

I believe I got most of the Chairman's comments. There was some interruption during that contribution. On the importance of the land bridge, only for DFDS coming in with three ships on 1 January there would have been a lot of issues for hauliers going to Europe. Contrary to an Irish Maritime Development Office, IMDO, report that said there was 40% capacity, there was no capacity on the direct routes. DFDS provided three ships, which gave us six extra sailings a week. Stena Line put in another ship and a daily service out of Rosslare. Irish Ferries, which did the least of all, transferred one ship for one sailing per week off the Holyhead route and onto the Cherbourg route at weekends.

On the lack of transport going on the UK land bridge, the issue still comes back to paperwork and the need for the paperwork to create the transit document.

Customers are probably doing much more in trying to keep their UK business going rather than having to worry about their European business, so they have concentrated on sorting out their UK business.

The direct ferry is good competition for the land bridge. It is more expensive but it is keeping to the same timelines as it. Paperwork is probably the biggest issue for the land bridge due to what is happening and changing in the UK. There are still delays in Dover and Calais. It is not plain sailing, much as people might like to say it is. The queues are always there and have not gone away. The Eurotunnel has reduced its volume of trains per hour. It used to run six trains per hour and that is now down to four. I also understand that P&O Ferries in Dover has reduced its ships by one, so there are fewer sailings from Dover as well. That is adding to the customs and paperwork problems in both Dover and Folkestone. That is the transit issue.