Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: UK Crash Out

As the Irish Examiner writes the Port of Cork is poised to set up a special "border control" facility to help ease congestion at Dublin and Rosslare should Britain crash out of the EU.

A British-Irish Chamber of Commerce meeting in Cork heard from the port's chief executive Brendan Keating, who said it was stepping up its plans to handle more traffic. "We are seeking to develop what is called a border control point. Dublin has built one and is prepared for a worst-case scenario hard Brexit. Rosslare is ready. We are about to start preparation on one to facilitate inspections of products coming to and from the country.

"We are doing it because the Government is somewhat concerned that with congestion in Dublin and Rosslare, other ports will have to kick in and facilitate trade movement. We are next and we will prepare. We will be ready in time," Mr Keating said.

The Port of Cork was somewhat insulated from a hard Brexit because its business is less dependant on daily trade across the Irish Sea. As a "lift-on, lift-off" port, it hoped to grow its market share from 20% to 25% once the multimillion redevelopment of Ringaskiddy is completed, Mr Keating said.

Click here for more on the story.

Published in Port of Cork

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).