How much has Dublin Port Company invested to prepare for Brexit?

Since the end of March, we’ve invested €30m in Brexit preparations. We’ve spent this money on buying some assets on the port that we’ll need in the future and have also built a primary border inspection post that will be used for customs checks after Brexit. If you’re coming on a ferry out of Holyhead or Liverpool with Irish Ferries or with Stena Line, whether you’re a passenger or a haulier, you will have to transit through this new border inspection area. This will be the first point of contact passengers or hauliers will have with the Irish State

What sort of cargo volumes come in from the UK through Dublin Port?

Every day, we’ve got 16 ferries coming in from the UK. We have eight ferries arriving every day from Liverpool-Heysham port, primarily cargo only, and we’ve another eight ferries every day from Holyhead, which are a mixture of freight and passengers. Of the total 1.4m cargo units (roll-on/roll-off trucks and load-on/load-off containers) imported through Dublin Port in 2018, roughly 850,000 came from the UK.

What products coming from the UK will the Department of Agriculture (DAFM) need to inspect?

An awful lot of food products are imported from the UK every day that are going to distribution centres and on to Irish supermarkets. If you’re bringing in food or anything of animal origin, you’re going to have to come through these new primary inspection posts for customs checks. This cargo will then have to go through a 3ha yard further inside the port where there will be sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) checks by officials from DAFM. Some of these trucks going in for SPS checks are also going to be subject to a physical examination and will have to go to another warehouse where the container will be opened and product may be taken out and tested.

How will these checks affect goods moving through the port?

The only thing we know is that goods will move more slowly through Dublin Port than they have up to now. We enjoyed a remarkable period from 1992 when we joined the single market where products coming from the UK simply flowed off the ferries and out the gate to the M50. All of that changes once Brexit happens.

Will Brexit change supply chains for companies importing products to Ireland?

For sure, the patterns of trade are going to change. I think we’re already seeing that with more foodstuffs coming in from continental Europe, be it chilled or ambient. This product is arriving on the growing services that are operating direct from continental Europe to Dublin Port such as the WB Yeats, the MV Celine and the newly built MV Lauraline, which is offering ro-ro freight services from Dublin to Zeebrugge (Belgium) and Rotterdam (the Netherlands). So patterns will change. Quite how it all settles down is impossible to forecast.