Mr. Eugene Drennan:

A few things happened in shipping this week. One was we had no service out of Pembroke Port last Sunday because Stena Line does not sail from Pembroke on Sundays and Irish Ferries, in order to catch up on its schedule, just dropped the schedule on the southern corridor with no notification to customers. That tells us how relaxed and freely shipping lines can make up their own schedules. It is a scheduled service, like a bus service, so there should be some acknowledgment to the Department of Transport or to the customers.

In regard to Stena Line, that is a commercial decision for it. This will cause a capacity problem with the direct ferries for sure. It will cause a problem for live animals because Stena Line is the shipping line that tends to take them. It will cause a capacity issue in that we will have to go back through the UK on the land bridge of old. If that happens - and Stena Line intends having a new service to the Liverpool route - the schedule of sailing we have now should be there and I will explain the reasons for that.

The Tánaiste and Keir Starmer met some months ago to discuss simplifying the transfer of food and the ease of going into the UK. The necessity to have a veterinary certificate for every item on a groupage load into the UK should always be eased, it should travel sealed and on one certificate. The UK side needs to be simplified as well as the one here but the vets are insisting on 14 certificates for 14 items in the one load. We must have simplified procedures agreed with the UK so that we can go back to using the land link more easily. The unit is a sealed one and it will arrive in the EU. Since it is EU product being sent to the EU, which will use the land bridge, the procedures should be simplified.

If the statements of some months ago are followed through on, this should be part of it. We should look into anything regulatory that may impact on slowing up that process because this is now crucial, as they have decided to leave the full service.