Over 10 years ago I started blogging. The very first topic I
covered on cllrjoeryan.blogspot.com was Rosslare Europort and its future. I’ve a back ground in The failure to
invest in Rosslare and see its potential is one. Why? Because it still persists. Long after ports like
Folkestone, Stranraer and Dun Laoghaire have seen an end to passenger services,
Rosslare survives despite the policy makers. The new consensus in business is
critical mass. Rosslare comes a poor second behind Cork and Dublin ports. These
ports can offer operators like Irish Ferries better rates. The potential loss
on shipping to Britain after Brexit will be replaced by European shipping.
That was clear to me when I stood in Croke Park last April and saw a massive
container ship which is billed as the Brexit buster. It will sail 3 times a
week to and from Belgium carrying containers that otherwise would have gone
through the landbridge to EU markets.
transport from my time
managing a student travel business in my 20’s. A lot has changed since then but
much remains the same.
It is the exact same logic that sees McCauleys want to
relocate from Wexford to Dublin. It is the same policy that sees Dublin
recently get a fourth university when we still have no university in the south
east. While government may want for optics to be seen to fight Wexford’s
corner, how many will be fooled?
And nobody knows any of this better than Pascal O’Donohue
and Leo Varadkar both the immediate predecessors of Shane Ross in the
Department of Transport who went on to better things. Both had the opportunity
to deal with some of the issues I raised in that blog like the spending of €1M
to remove rail access and the failure to develop rail freight.
I’ve concluded that neither Varadkar nor Donohue never acted
because it is simply ideological on their part. They pretend otherwise but
their implicit policy is to let the market sort it out. Logistics is no place
for policy. Ross was the guy who hollered
about waste in CIE in opposition. In fact he co wrote with his son in law (How more
Healey Rae can one get in South Dublin?) a book about corporate shenanigans
called “Wasters”.
Let’s be blunt about it. Dublin has the M50 and port tunnel
with a very efficient harbour which can offer low berthing fees based on
economies of scale. Look at a map, all roads lead to Dublin. An extra few hours
on board a luxury ship will extract more money from Irish Ferries passengers.
Sailing from Dublin means less driving for many of their car passengers. Trucks
may be a different story all together. It will add to costs from the south east
but other parts of the country will see cost and time reductions. The new Irish
Ferries ship will see additional capacity. It is that additional capacity which
will make it very difficult for any new shipping line to come on the route from
Rosslare to France.
Except, there is the matter of the Enniscorthy and New Ross
by passes which are set to open in 2019. Rather than making it easy to get to
Rosslare, could it be that they make it easier for trucks to distribute from
Cork or Dublin ports?
So while Fine Gael may tug at the company directors sleeve
to ask them to reconsider, Irish Ferries know the score. They didn’t do U turns
on the issue of reflagging and yellow packing with agency staff over 15 years
ago, they won’t be doing it now either.
If Rosslare Europort has a future it will be when the
ideological hang up in the present government is put away and not until then.
In essence the last 3 ministers created the environment where Irish Ferries
could take the decision to pull its continental services and get away with it
knowing there’d be nothing that could be done once it walked. Much has been
made of €15M to be allocated to Rosslare Europort over the next 7 years. Compare
that to almost €1B for Dublin port. Makes you wonder who the constituency TD
for Dublin Port is, doesn’t it, Pascal?
The sooner Wexford wakes up to that reality, the better.
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