Greenore Port, part of the Doyle Shipping Group (DSG) has announced that it is the first Irish Port to apply for a Maritime Area Consent (MAC) under the newly established Maritime Area Regulatory Authority (MARA), writes Jehan Ashmore.

As Afloat reported in July, MARA became the State’s first authority for issuing of maritime planning permissions. The new agency based in Co. Wexford was initiated by government ministers.

Greenore Port which is at the entrance to Carlingford Lough, is where DSG plan to invest €25m in a state-of-the-art operations and maintenance (OMF) base to support offshore wind on the East Coast. The project at the Co. Louth port is due to be completed in early 2026 and will create in excess of 200 jobs.

DSG which has its origins as a stevedore in Cork dating to 1886, is now a nationwide integrated shipping, logistics and maritime services group. In addition to expanding operations with working on wind energy projects of over 20 years.

It’s port operations at Greenore, handles general cargo, project cargo and a variety of commodities including bulk cargoes in animal feed, rock and fertiliser.

Greenore is also the main steel port in Ireland, and is strategically located close to the important Dublin-Belfast Economic Corridor, which is connected to the M1 motorway.

The port has completed an extensive dredging project to remove over 7000 tonnes of rock from the port’s harbour bed. This permits the port to accommodate merchant vessels of 60,000 deadweight tonnes (dwt) with a 8.5m draft and with ships of up to 200m length overall (LOA).