No deal Brexit could pose an ‘existential threat’ to Foyle Port with ‘tumbleweed’ rather than traffic jams of ‘grave concern,’ says Brian McGrath

A ‘no-deal’ Brexit could pose an ‘existential threat’ to Foyle Port and see the harbour lose up to 40% of its trade, according to its chief executive Brian McGrath.
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Mr. McGrath said he was ‘gravely concerned’ about the prospect while briefing MLAs at the Stormont Infrastructure Committee.

“We, on a daily basis, leave Greencastle in Donegal with our pilots to go out to collect the ships to bring them into Lisahally into the UK side of things so for us Brexit is quite an existential threat. If there were to be a hard border created it would be absolutely critical to our future well-being,” said Mr. McGrath.

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The port boss said the organisation was working with the Department of Infrastructure and the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs to ensure goods continue to flow next January.

Capacity, he advised, is not an issue.

“We have a 150 acre land bank which is adjacent to up to 1000 acres of industrially-zoned land so within the entirety of the UK we’ve probably got some of the best capacity for growth of any port in the UK and we have, through DfI, vesting rights that allow us to seek to protect the harbour undertaking, to protect that sustainability. So we don’t have any problem from a capacity point of view and because we are not dealing with ‘ro-ro’ traffic the work that we’ve done with DAERA would indicate that we have a lower risk of impediment in terms of future trade but we need to make sure that that’s the case.”

Congestion at Lisahally may not be a problem at all but the port is concerned about a potential collapse in cargo throughput.

“Our dilemma about Brexit and whether or not arrangements can be made to maintain the smooth flow of traffic - the consequences, for us, of that not happening is not so much that we’ll have too many blockages, it just might be no ships will come. So the consequences of a hard Brexit for us could be the loss of up to 40 per cent of our trade. Instead of it being congested it will be tumbleweeds that we’ll be dealing with instead of having too much traffic.”

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Mr. Grath said the port would continue to engage with the departments to minimise the potential for red-tape.

“It may be down to political interpretation and if that’s the case then we would be very, gravely concerned about the potential consequences on the support that we would be able to give to the regional economy,” he remarked.

He added: “For us, we could be bypassed with vessels coming into the Republic of Ireland and serving that region instead of coming through us.”