Brexit uncertainty may be taking toll on tourist traffic at Dublin Port

Brexit uncertainty may be hitting the volume of tourist traffic through Dublin Port with the latest quarterly figures showing a fall-off in tourist vehicles and passengers from Britain and mainland Europe.

The figures show the number of tourist vehicles entering the State via the port fell by 1.5 per cent to 405, 907 in the third quarter of this year, while the number of ferry passengers, the bulk of which come from Britain, was down by 0.6 per cent to 1.48 million.

Overall passenger numbers, however, rose by 3.3 per cent to just under 1.7 million, principally because of a 43 per cent jump in cruise passenger numbers, which rose to 212,297.

Dublin Port has begun erecting new buildings for customs officials to check vehicles coming off ships and ferries after Brexit.

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Taoiseach Leo Varadkar said this week that the Republic was stepping up preparations for physical infrastructure at ports and airports as the Brexit talks remain at an impasse over the Border issue.

Control infrastructure

“We have begun construction of primary Border control infrastructure to ensure that Dublin Port is prepared for whatever Brexit might throw at us,” Dublin Port’s chief executive Eamonn O’Reilly said.

“Our preparations are closely co-ordinated with the various State agencies who will have to carry out inspections on UK freight once Brexit happens. Having come through the worst of recessions from 2008, our volumes are already 23 per cent higher than they were in 2007. We need to press ahead with our infrastructure projects notwithstanding the uncertainties of Brexit.”

The company’s headline trade numbers, however, showed no sign of a Brexit-related slowdown with cargo volumes up nearly 5 per cent to 28.4 million tonnes in the first nine months of 2018. Within this total, imports grew by 6 per cent and exports by 3 per cent. Imports of new vehicles increased by 6 per cent to 78,000.

Booming trade

“Port volumes in Dublin continue to grow at an extraordinary rate and by the end of this year we are looking at 36 per cent growth in just six years,” Mr O’Reilly said.

“This rate is outstripping our long-term masterplan growth rate of 3.3 per cent per annum and underpins the need for us to accelerate our capital investment programme to ensure that Dublin Port has sufficient capacity for future growth,” he said.

Mr O'Reilly said the port needs to invest €1 billion in the next 10 years to cope with the expected uplift in trade. "While we continue to work on the Alexandra Basin redevelopment project, we will shortly bring our second major strategic infrastructure project to An Bord Pleanála to ensure that we have a pipeline of consented projects ready to go."