There have been tens of thousands of inspections at the likes of Dublin and Rosslare Ports on goods coming into Ireland. Photo: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg
There have been tens of thousands of inspections at the likes of Dublin and Rosslare Ports on goods coming into Ireland. Photo: Aidan Crawley/Bloomberg
Brexit has led to a dramatic drop in freight volumes between Ireland and Britain and a diversion of goods via Northern Ireland.
New figures from the Irish Maritime Development Office show that roll-on/roll-off trade – or RoRo, where loaded trucks drive cargo on and off ships – collapsed by around a third so far this year and makes up much less of overall traffic out of Ireland than it did before the pandemic.
At the same time, Northern Ireland RoRo traffic saw its busiest three months on record between April and July this year.
Freight volumes between Ireland and Britain fell by 29pc in the first half of this year, compared to the first half of 2019 - a more reliable comparison due to the pandemic, according to the IMDO’s Q2 2021 Unitised Traffic Report.
Traffic between Ireland and Britain now makes up just two-thirds of all Irish freight volumes, compared to 84pc two years ago.
But RoRo traffic from Northern Irish ports - Belfast, Larne and Warrenpoint - rose by 11pc in the second quarter of 2021, compared to the same period in 2019.
And a third of all RoRo traffic in the Republic of Ireland now operates on direct routes to European ports, double its share in the second quarter of 2019.
And the second quarter of this year was the busiest on record for direct routes from Ireland to Europe.
“Brexit has had a significant effect on RoRo traffic on the island of Ireland. The most prominent impact has been on the use of the UK landbridge,” the report says, referring to the way hauliers used to transit EU-bound goods through Great Britain before Brexit.
"From early 2021, it was clear that haulage companies based in Northern Ireland had transferred some traffic away from RoRo services in ROI [the Republic of Ireland] in order to avoid the new customs requirements involved between Ireland and UK ports.”
The figures tally with what hauliers have been saying for months.
The head of the Irish Road Haulage Association has repeatedly called for less onerous customs clearance requirements in Dublin Port, saying authorities there are applying EU rules too severely.