‘Imperative’ need to move Dublin Port now a ‘maybe’

Government appears to have rolled back on calls for Dublin Port to move from its current location, according to internal Cabinet-level documents.

A memo, which had originally stated there was an argument to move Dublin Port to free up public land for housing development, was changed.

The memo, released to the Irish Daily Mail, shows that the issues paper from June 2023 was altered to water down language that would have seen the Governtive ment take a more robust position on the matter. The note shows that an original paper in June of last year stated: ‘It has been argued that the need to free public land for housing development makes the relocation of Dublin Port imperative.’

However, this was changed to: ‘It has been argued that the need to address these growing pressures makes it impera to examine a possible relocation of the whole of Dublin Port.’

In an earlier draft the paper also said: ‘Any relocation of Dublin port would have to be a long-term policy objective given the €1.6billion of development works currently under way.’

This was also changed to read in an updated version: ‘Any relocation of Dublin Port would have to be a long-term policy objective given the funding requirements and timelines involved.’

A question asking whether existing ports should be expanded was changed to: ‘Can expansion at existing ports address any future capacity deficit or should a new port be planned to offset port capacity requirements as we approach 2040?’

An attached report read: ‘Dublin Port is by far the dominant RoRo [roll on/roll off] freight port... The Port of Cork has potential to increase capacity through additional sailings and Rosslare Europort has potential to increase its yard utilisation.’