Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The whole issue of putting this infrastructure in place and the development of the capacity we need is completely beyond the ambition of this Government, which seems to be really lagging behind in developing the ports system in the State. It is one of the great disappointments that this opportunity exists and yet the Government is talking about publishing plans, doing reports and getting consultants in to talk about it. We should be getting on with the business of developing this capacity as quickly as possible.

I wish to bring to the Minister of State's attention another issue around Dublin Port. Since Brexit, a lane was put in place for a lot of the cargo coming in. Naturally enough we did not know what was going to happen because of Brexit and there were possibly a lot of checks to be put in place. Revenue and the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine have some 14 ha of space at least from Dublin Port to use for this. That space is completely underutilised. Most of the time these huge yards and huge spaces are not being used at all. There needs to be a review of that and recognition of the progress that has been made with Brexit and the Protocol deal, which has meant that the red lane and the amber lane will be used very little. There needs to be a review of this to open that space up so the port can be used properly.

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