I was down in Dublin yesterday, where I talked to a man whose job involves keeping the containers that arrive at Dublin port running smoothly to their destination. Sometimes, he said, he found this work frustrating. Drivers would contact him to complain about the new forms they had to fill in. “They knew this was coming since the early days of Brexit about three years ago, and yet they act is if it came as a shock”. I suppose that’s human nature. We tend not to address problems until they come marching up to our front door.
The other thing he talked about, of probably greater significance, is that Holyhead and Liverpool are suffering from Brexit. Only half Dublin Port’s containers now come from Britain, whereas before Brexit, 64% came. Overall, in the past nine months, Dublin Port registered a 21% decline in trade with British ports, but a 36% increase in business with the EU. Britain as a land-bridge for goods travelling Holyhead-Dover-Calais has been replaced by goods going directly from Ireland to Europe. Before Brexit, there were seven ferry routes from the south of Ireland to the continental mainland. There are now forty-four.
So don’t dismiss Jeffrey Donaldson’s fears about NEI suffering from Brexit (for which his party campaigned like demons). With the (sorry about this, Virginia) “island of Ireland” in its entirety open to goods from the continent, the significance of NEI ports will inevitably shrink while Dublin and Rosslare will grow.
We get the politicians we voted for, and we get the consequences of Brexit which most of us didn’t vote for but the DUP did.
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