Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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173. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the efforts being made to secure more direct shipping routes between Ireland and the continent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60087/21]

Neale Richmond (Dublin Rathdown, Fine Gael)
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174. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the efforts that are being made to encourage Irish exports to switch to direct shipping routes between Ireland and the continent; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [60088/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 173 and 174 together.

I propose answering parliamentary questions 60087 and 60088 together.

My Department, in conjunction with the IMDO, have been keeping the issue of direct shipping routes to the Continent under close review both in the context of Brexit and the COVID-19 pandemic.

Since January 2019, my Department has had very regular discussions with shipping companies and other maritime stakeholders about the issue of maritime connectivity. In that time, we have consistently received strong assurances from the shipping companies that if there is an increase in demand for shipping capacity on direct routes to Continental Europe, they would respond.

In the run up to 1 January 2021, my Department, with the IMDO and other key Departments, undertook a major communications campaign, urging business using the UK landbridge to consider a switch to direct routes to avoid disruptions due to the new control regimes.

We witnessed throughout 2020 and 2021 an unprecedented response from the shipping industry in terms of increasing capacity to match market demand. It has occurred across all relevant modes and has drawn from all available responses. These responses include (1) utilization of surplus capacity, (2) increasing capacity by altering schedules, (3) redeploying vessels within their fleets, and (4) adding new capacity in the form of additional vessels. New/additional direct ferry links with increased capacity including to Cherbourg, Dunkerque, Zeebrugge, Rotterdam, Amsterdam, Antwerp, Roscoff and Santander have come on stream and are seeing high demand. These responses and the new services launched over this and last year (see further below), demonstrate the commitment of the shipping companies to the Irish market. With the significant investment involved, it is clear that the companies see opportunities to expand their services and grow their market share. This is key to Ireland in terms of maximising our maritime connectivity to underpin our economy.

Overall weekly RoRo freight is up on direct routes to the Continent while it is down on Great Britain (GB)/Ireland routes. As noted in the IMDO’sUnitised Traffic Report Q3 2021, bythe end of Q3, one third of all roll-on roll-off (RoRo) traffic in the Republic of Ireland (ROI) operated on direct routes to ports in the European Union (EU), up from a 16% share held throughout 2019. In the first nine months of 2021, ROI-EU traffic was already 52% above its annual total for all of 2019. Q3 2021 was the second busiest on record for these direct routes, surpassed only by Q2 2021. The IMDO report notes that traffic to GB has declined significantly since January 2021; in Q3, RoRo traffic from ROI to GB fell by 20% compared to Q3 2019. In the first nine months of this 2021, ROI-GB traffic declined 25% compared to 2019.

In terms of RoRo capacity, Irish importer and exporters have benefitted from a significant increase in the choice of direct EU services in 2021. At the end of Q3, after the sector responded to a surge in “direct demand”, there were 13 different direct EU RoRo services available to Irish businesses, compared to 6 in 2019. In total, there are now over 60 weekly RoRo services to and from the EU available, an increase of about 36 sailings on 2019 levels.

There have been 27 separate interventions, as set out below, by RoRo+ load-on load-off (LoLo) freight operators in the past 19 months in response to Brexit.

I also wish to assure the Deputy that my officials and I will continue to keep in close contact with the shipping companies to monitor the situation and assist where possible.