Ireland faces devastating blow after its failure on ferry services to Europe

Photo 161115810 © Peter Krocka - Dreamstime.com

Being a hostage to fortune is never a good place to be, and unfortunately that looks like the short-term future for Ireland’s exporters to Europe, dependent on the British landbridge, who can expect to pay a particularly heavy price for the UK’s botched Brexit preparations. Some 150,000 Irish trucks transit the UK a year to Europe, carrying around €18bn in exports. Expectations of huge queues of trucks leading to Dover is a dangerous threat to the integrity of these supply chains. However, this article in the Irish Times argues that the failure to prepare for post-Brexit supply chain congestion also lies with the Irish, especially given the absence of sufficient Ireland-continental Europe shipping capacity. “In practical terms, such routes will not cost much more and may even cost less once they are up and running. There is a problem of longer times for delivery but they will be nothing to the delays that are now going to be inevitable not just in the first few weeks of January but for the foreseeable future. There is still time to hire the extra ferry capacity to tide the country over the immediate problems that will arise in January.”