Panic Stations!

Give us a break. Are we all supposed to swallow this? Are we been treated as fools by Irish Ferries? In a judgement on the debacle involving the Irish Ferries vessel which was delayed entering service in 2018, the NTA directed the ferry company to compensate its passengers who were out of pocket due to changing their travel arrangements.

Now Irish Ferries have hit back and said that the NTA’s interpretation of EU regulation had been a “critical factor” in its “regretful” conclusion that it will be unlikely to operate the Oscar Wilde to France out of Rosslare this year. Irish Ferries also accused the NTA of contributing to making the route “commercially unviable” in the future.

Are they serious?  There’s more than a share of shifting the blame and finger pointing about this excuse.

Are we all expected to believe that the year round shipping of  trucks and freight carried direct to France by the company doesn’t generate a funding stream all year round? Does the company expect the travelling public to think that the straw that broke the camels back was compensating its passengers due to the failure of its ship builder to complete a job on time and within budget?

According to Irish Ferries at the time the ship WB Yeats didn’t enter service due to a problem at the shipyard.  Booking s had been made off the back of a signed contract to deliver a vessel. If the shipyard was responsible for delays then Irish Ferries needed to pursue them.

What is the point in singing a contract to build if when the things go pear shaped that you can’t pursue the ship builder .

Irish Ferries shut the route from Rosslare to France simply because they see Dublin port has a critical mass and reach that is greater than Rosslare. A few hours extra on their ship will mean more on board spending. That’s why Irish ferries took the decision they did.

Let’s hope the EU give Irish Ferries short shrift on this one and send them home with their tails between their legs.

Is Rosslair heading for Davy Jones's Locker?

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.

The tale of 2 café’s

About 30 years ago Rosslare Harbour morphed into Rosslare Europort.  Central to the rebrand was the new terminal at the harbour which won award after award for its design. 2 railway stations rolled into one with walkways to the ships. Integrated services for foot passengers meant that trains and ships ran together.  I remember travelling from Dublin on the 13.30 and transferring to the ship for Le Havre with just a 20 minute stop over. On the other hand arriving in Le Havre meant a shuttle bus to the railway station where you had a full 90 minute wait for the train to St Lazare.

Ferry services to Le Havre are a thing of the past. Rosslare Europort has also lost its sheen. The train no longer draws up at the platform. About 10 years ago it was relocated overnight to a new platform to the rear of a redundant engine shed.  Foot passengers have dropped off as  the focus has moved to cars and road freight.

One causality of the times has been the cafe and bar.  About 20 years ago, I recall watching an Ireland game one afternoon as I waited for the steam train to be turned on the turn table before we came back to town.

Rosslare has ferry links to 4 other ports. One of them is Fishguard.  Fishguard never got the  level of investment from the British government that Rosslare got. Let’s park the legal anomaly about the Fishguard Rosslare Harbour Railway Company. Stena owns the railway station at Fishguard Harbour. While the cafe and bar at Rosslare are a thing of the past, travellers to Rosslare may be interested to know that the cafe on the platform in Fishguard is still going strong. A few weeks ago i had a bite to eat there as I waited for the boat home. For less than a fiver I got a plate of chips with a sausage roll and a cuppa. That was much less than what I’d have paid onboard the ship home.

This is the bit I find interesting. Rosslare has significantly more foot passengers than Fishguard presumably with more money to spend. Yet the café at Rosslare is closed while the one at Fishguard operates.  There’s an opening for someone in the catering business were CIE prepared to offer a realistic lease to re-open the café.  And judging by the price I paid for a simple meal there’s an opportunity for someone to compete with the monopoly that ferries enjoy once the set sail if CIE were prepared to rent out the former café.

Let’s face it, there is no business with a bar. Attitudes to drink have changed. The prospect of BREXIT will eventually mean a return of duty free and the dreaded booze cruises. Who’d invest long term in a bar when the shipping line might possibly undercut you? But food is different. 

CIE asked for a bail out from the state about 4 years ago. Nobody asked them if they were maxing their assets to ensure that all possible revenue streams were contributing to the company. But then senior civil servants in the Department of Finance are rarely found supping tea while waiting for a ferry to Ireland.