The delivery backlogs caused by the closure of Holyhead Port in the wake of Storm Darragh last weekend have been almost completely cleared, but the travel plans of tens of thousands of people with ferry crossings booked over the next 10 days remain under threat.
The Department of Transport is working over the weekend to develop further contingency measures to deal with the crisis, having confirmed that it has temporarily relaxed the rules around working hours for haulage drivers.
In an update on Sunday afternoon, An Post said that all but 16,000 of the 500,000 parcels affected by the port’s closure have now been processed.
It delivered 350,000 parcels to customers on Saturday with a similar number likely to reach their final destination on Monday.
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An Post is also securing air freight capacity to get parcels and mail that would traditionally have shipped via Holyhead moved out of Ireland to meet latest posting date promises.
Additional ferry capacity has been created across all other ferry lanes into Ireland while UK- and EU-Ireland shipping routes have deployed larger vessels and additional sailings to offset some of the consequences of Holyhead’s continued closure.
The Department of Transport has temporarily relaxed the normally strict rules around drivers’ hours to allow truck drivers to compliantly operate for more hours during the current crisis.
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan and the Minister for State at the department James Lawless will be meeting the ferry companies early this week to see if more journeys can be added to schedules in the run up to Christmas.
While the docking berths at Holyhead could reopen towards the end of this week according to the authorities there, Mr Lawless has warned that it is going to be a case of hoping for the best but planning for the worst.
[ Holyhead Port damage: Have your Christmas present parcels been delayed?Opens in new window ]
If the port does remain closed beyond next Friday it will leave the travel plans of tens of thousands of people in disarray.
About 33,000 vehicles typically cross the Irish Sea from Holyhead to Dublin during the Christmas period, with the ferries carrying as many as 100,000 passengers.
Additional capacity is being provided from Rosslare with Irish Ferries assigning the WB Yeats to replace the Isle of Innisfree this week. Stena Line has also introduced an additional sailing to Liverpool.
Travel writer and owner of the Travel Extra website Eoghan Corry said Irish ferry companies and cargo ships have “never had to deal with a port closure on this scale and it shows how vulnerable we are”.
He said it would be “very lucky” if the port reopens this week.
However he noted that ferry crossings amounted for less than 10 per cent of the traffic coming into Ireland over Christmas so the scale of the crisis would not be as great as it was before the era of low-cost flights.
Despite the changing nature of travel between the two islands, Mr Corry said the disruption would be “hugely inconvenient for people who use the ferry for the presents they plan to bring – people bring boot loads of them and you can’t really do that on a plane”.
He also noted that while ferry companies are excellent at managing disruptions caused by weather, they were under severe pressure this week.
“They are asking impacted customers to re-book online because they’re not set up to handle the volume of changes and that leaves people confused,” he said, adding that “there will be disruptions and delays no matter what happens.”
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