Mr Ross told Ms Foster in his replying April 4th letter that he was “very keen to mitigate any adverse effects thatHe said he met Dublin Port Company executives in March “with these concerns in mind” to hear more about its “rationale for prioritisation in the context of Brexit as well as the specifics with regard to cruise berths”.
A group of retailers and other businesses that benefit from cruise tourism criticised an alternative Cork-Belfast plan, saying cruise companies are likely to chose other international locations if they cannot stop in Dublin. “If ships cannot stop in Dublin, they will take cruises off to the Balkans or the Mediterranean,” said Lorcan O’Connor, a director of Carroll’s Irish Gifts and a spokesman for All-“What the cruise ships tell us is that Dublin is the hook that gets them in to Ireland. It is usually Dublin plus one other port, either Cork or Belfast.”
The group has estimated that the reduced cruise business to Dublin over the three years of the port’s redevelopment would lead to a drop of 120,000 visitors over that period. It questioned Dublin Port’s long-term commitment to the cruise business; a criticism that the port has rejected. Eamonn O’Reilly, the port’s chief executive, said that it could not build new berths at the port if it committed to continuing accepting the same level of cruise business because there was not sufficient docking space. Port managers “would be daft” not to accept additional cruise business in later years once the construction work is completed as part of a €1 billion plan to develop the port over the next decade, he said.