It is “highly unlikely” Holyhead Port will reopen to ferry traffic this side of Christmas, Taoiseach Simon Harris has said.
Mr Harris made his comments before Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan and Minister of State for Transport James Lawless spoke with ferry companies Stena Line and Irish Ferries on Monday about the closure last week of the key freight route.
Mr Lawless, speaking after the meeting with the ferry operators, said the reopening of the port, which is run by Stena Line Ports Ltd, is “uncertain” and that an update is expected in the next 24-48 hours. Stena’s latest position is that the service will not be reopening before Friday.
Mr Lawless spoke with Welsh cabinet secretaries on Sunday about the closure of port, with the politicians agreeing on the “importance of the Holyhead Port operator providing reliable and up-to-date information”, according to a statement from the department.
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Ger Hyland, president of the Irish Road Haulage Association, who took part in an online stakeholders’ meeting with Mr Ryan and Mr Lawless on Monday, said they had “no more information than we had”.
He was critical of Stena Line Ports Ltd. “It has really contributed to the mess we are in. We sat for three or four days [last week] with no guidance as to when the port was to reopen.
“Sixty per cent of the freight was travelling between Holyhead and Dublin. That seems to have been the umbilical cord between [Ireland and the UK], and with the loss of Holyhead, the other UK ports just didn’t have the capacity.”
Stena, which runs a number of UK ports, said it was working to secure alternative ferry crossings, with a new, freight-only service to run between Dublin and Heysham and an additional Dublin-Birkenhead service that will take passengers with bookings for the Holyhead service. Both services will begin on Tuesday, it said. A new temporary Dublin-Fishguard service is also being put in place.
It is understood that, at Monday’s meeting, Stena explained that its UK ports were constrained in respect of offering landing berths for Irish Ferries as they were already at capacity due to the closure of Holyhead.
Irish Ferries, in a statement, said it wanted to state “categorically” that the damage at Holyhead last weekend was not due to “the berthing operations of our vessels, but due to port infrastructure damage that emerged during Storm Darragh”.
It said it had increased capacity on its Pembroke-Rosslare route and also has additional sailings on its Dublin-Cherbourg route, “adding significant freight capacity and access to continental markets”.
Mr Hyland said his members were moving freight between Ireland and the UK using ferry services between Northern Ireland and Scotland, but this was adding significantly to costs and the amount of time trucks were on the road.
“And bear in mind that about 60 or 70 per cent of the freight that was coming into Dublin was being delivered in a 50-mile radius of Dublin. Now you have the freight that is coming into Northern Ireland, coming in in the wrong place.”
Plans are being made for additional public transport from Rosslare during the Christmas holiday period, in case travellers find they have to land there rather than in Dublin, said port director Glenn Carr.
“The department is looking at onward public transport, which may help people arriving in Rosslare who want to travel onward to Dublin and elsewhere,” he said.
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