More land needs to be made available and the infrastructure upgraded in order to improve facilities at Dublin Port, chairman of Norse Merchant Ferries, Mr Michael Hendry, said yesterday.

"We are desperately short of space in Dublin. We need further land to be made available if we are to reach our potential and our customers are to reach their potential. The port tunnel in itself won't be enough. We need the eastern by-pass as well," he said.

Mr Hendry was speaking at the announcement of the merger of Norse Irish Ferries and Merchant Ferries to form Norse Merchant Ferries.

He said that Norse Merchant had increased its freight and passengers through Dublin by 70 per cent in the past two years.

The newly-merged company is targeting a 40 per cent market share of ro-ro freight moving on the Irish Sea within the next two years. This would make it the market leader in this area.

Norse Merchant estimates its share of the Irish Sea freight market is more than 30 per cent, ranking it second to P&O Ferries. It operates four separate services on the Irish Sea - twice daily passenger and ro-ro freight services link Liverpool with Belfast and Dublin, while dedicated ro-ro services operate four times a day between Heysham, Belfast and Dublin.

In Liverpool, Norse Merchant is set to move to a new purpose-built riverside facility, the Twelve Quays terminal, early in 2002.

Major distributors and supermarket groups are already in discussions about establishing regional distribution centres adjacent to Twelve Quays to support their Irish import and export operations, according to Mr Hendry.

In Belfast, Norse Merchant intends merging the former Belfast Freight Ferries and Norse Irish terminals.