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Displaying items by tag: Cork Maritime Cluster

#ShannonEstuary - Liadh Ní Riada, the Ireland South MEP writes Limerick Leader has hit back at Minister of State Patrick O’Donovan, after he criticised her for supporting a maritime cluster in Cork and neighbouring ports.

Limerick TD O’Donovan, Fine Gael, accused Ms Ní Riada of forgetting about Limerick, which is in her constituency, given that Foynes port is one of the deepest ports in Ireland.

The Sinn Fein MEP said she was “slightly bewildered” by his comments.

“He seems to think that my support for a maritime cluster in Cork amounts to some sort of attack on Limerick.

“Of course, this is demonstrable nonsense, in fact in giving my support to the project I specified that such a development would not just be to the benefit of Cork but would draw in all the ports in the Ireland South region,” added the MEP, who is herself from Cork.

For more from the newspaper, click here.

Published in Shannon Estuary

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).