Mr. Glenn Carr:

On the relationship with the UK ports, we have two ports that are connected with Rosslare, namely, Pembroke and Fishguard. They are obviously struggling at the moment because their volumes are right down. They need to look at their plans and we are certainly sharing some of our experiences. For instance, they have not yet put their border inspection posts in place. There is the question of whether there is a need to put two of them into two ports or should they be concentrated in one port. I have spoken to the shipping lines and to the relevant port agencies of both ports. It is not great that at the moment we have four services per day going to those two ports with two going to each. That means we only have two coming back. There are four out of Rosslare but just two out of Fishguard and two out of Pembroke. They are not ideally aligned timewise either. I would much rather see a port being developed over there with the right infrastructure and the right road network infrastructure upgrade and with a regular schedule of every six hours or so. This would give the haulier a good choice. If one does not have that choice one will simply go up to Holyhead, Liverpool etc.; such hauliers will not come across.

Again, pre-Christmas and pre-Covid, we had a lot of congestion issues at Holyhead. There are, therefore, some fundamental choices that those ports and the relevant government agencies over there must make. We will certainly work with them but the complexities that will come in in July will be seen more on the UK side than in a port over here. We have our systems in place now. As we have our border inspection posts in place now, it will not be seen here. Again, what we probably will see is an effect on volume coming through. That is not good in the long term, particularly for the sustainability of the shipping services. If they do not have a sustainable level of freight all year round, the shipping line must divert that vessel somewhere else. I am conscious that while we have great success on our European routes, we must equally try to balance and keep our UK connectivity because a reduction there is not the way we want to go. We need to improve and increase frequency in order to attract a market on that and there must be a sustainable volume. We must not forgot that there must be passengers as well, when that comes back post Covid. We are working with them but in terms of customs and stuff like that, that is going to be an issue for the UK to implement post Brexit.