Mr. Glenn Carr:

Those companies have revisited their supply chain. I will give the Deputy an example in which I am involved. We run a business called Navigator Freight Agency where we provide car parts for many of the car brands here in Ireland. Unfortunately, that industry is wedded to the set-up where the Irish market is treated by the big brands as part of the UK. All of the car parts today still come in from the UK, but every morning, we do not know if that truck will clear until it gets through the customs system. Every morning there are garages waiting for delivery of their car parts, where we have transport operators waiting to see what will happen. We have a warehouse in Dublin and in Northern Ireland. The risk in that can be seen. There could be 1,100 different commodity codes on that one trailer alone. If there is one commodity code that is not quite right and has not been input correctly, and if that input happens during the night or behind the scenes, many additional resources and costs and much additional risk will be involved. I can clearly see why many industries would have taken that risk away and would have moved out of the UK. Unless that changes, and the only way that will change is if the UK re-enters the EU, it will remain that way.

Mr. Kenny touched on this earlier and we will await the good news of the protocol, but I also think there was disproportionate traffic using the Belfast route. We will now see more of an alignment as to what happens with the red lane and green lane in Dublin and Rosslare and what will now emerge with the protocol. That might bring some traffic back down.

There are potential opportunities to grow activity, especially into Rosslare. We have four sailings a day out of Rosslare but there are only two sailings back from each of the two ports. Again, one of the great successes for Rosslare has been the creation of frequency as well as capacity because that is what the market wants. If there are only two sailings coming back out of Fishguard and Pembroke, I miss the last sailing out of Fishguard and I am not on time to get the last sailing out of Pembroke, I will go to Holyhead and to Dublin to make my journey shorter. The ports, shipping lines etc. need to look at the core product on offer to find ways of improving it. We have seen for two years now a consistent trend in traffic that was previously coming into Rosslare from the UK, and we have seen a dramatic increase in European traffic. I believe that will remain the case for the foreseeable future.

With regard to development in the port, the Deputy is correct that the Brexit adjustment reserve fund is being used, particularly to fund the works the OPW will be undertaking. We await the final phases of those works but my understanding is the tender is to be completed by 10 March. It is a process we have been heavily engaged in with the OPW but is not a process we ourselves are running.

To give the Deputy a context, when we were originally looking at and delivering our master plan, the decision was made about the border inspection post having to come back inside the port. The opportunity then came to utilise the Brexit adjustment reserve fund, which was the right decision. We have worked very closely with the OPW in regard to the phasing of the work and how that will be achieved. The scale of the build would mean that, if we were just to say to the OPW to go ahead and build it, we would have to shut down a very sizeable part of the port, and that is just not operationally possible. We have agreed with the OPW, and it has signed off on this, that very detailed phases of work will take place and be completed over the next two to two and half years. Some of that will be frontloaded.

I have no doubt but that when the OPW completes the tender, it will come back to us with that final phase of work. Until the procurement process is completed, my expectation is that we will see shovels in the ground this summer and people getting on with the work. The project is being led by the OPW. There are big benefits for the port in going down that road. We could have got on with our master plan but that would have meant us digging up a lot of the work we would have been doing in order for the OPW to gain access, particularly for a lot of the heavy construction work it would have required for its facility. The OPW will dictate the timeline for utilising the adjustment fund.