Fears for cruise ship business after Brexit

IRELAND’S growth as a cruise ship destination may be under threat due to Brexit.

And it’s not because tourists don’t want to come here – the extra port space needed to carry out thousands of extra customs checks after Britain quits the EU means many of the cruise ships will be squeezed out.

Dublin is the State’s most popular port for cruise liners. Last year 151 docked there and Dublin Port is fully booked for cruise ships this year with more than 190 due. Dublin Port Company chief Eamonn O’Reilly said: ‘We’ve got three different factors coming together: one obviously is Brexit, secondly we’ve seen huge growth in the port over the last six years, 36% growth in cargo, and thirdly we’re doing an awful lot of building work on existing quay walls which takes chunks of quay walls out of commission while they’re being built.

‘We have a full cruise season for 2019, over 190 ships, for 2020 we have about 150 ships, but from 2021 we’re going to have to restrict the number of these ships that we can take in because of those three factors.’

He said: ‘We’re not going to axe the cruise business. We’ve a very busy schedule, we’re going to have to curtail it.’ About 8,000 ships in all arrive at the port annually.

Travel expert Eoghan Corry said: ‘It’s a port capacity problem. Nobody has a clue what’s going to happen with customs checks after Brexit. Since 1996 the port has developed on a system of a complete absence of customs checks.’