Irish port traffic increases above pre-pandemic levels
The total number of vessels arriving in the seven main Irish ports, Bantry, Cork, Drogheda, Dublin, Rosslare, Shannon Foynes, and Waterford, increased by 347. Picture: Larry Cummins
The amount of goods handled by Irish ports in the second quarter of this year increased above pre-pandemic levels.
Figures from the Central Statistics Office (CSO) show nearly 13m tonnes of goods were handled between April and June. This is an increase of 17.4% compared with the same period last year and an increase of 5.1% compared with the second quarter of 2019.
By tonnage, Dublin Port handled the largest amount of cargo of 6.3m tonnes followed by Shannon Foynes with 2.5m tonnes and Cork with 2.4m tonnes. The figure for Cork is the largest over the past five years.
The CSO said that goods forwarded from the main Irish ports amounted to over 4m tonnes while a total of 8.6m tonnes of goods were received.
The total number of vessels arriving in the seven main Irish ports, Bantry, Cork, Drogheda, Dublin, Rosslare, Shannon Foynes, and Waterford, in this period increased by 347 (13%) to 3,025, while the gross tonnage of all arriving vessels increased by 7.7%.
All categories of goods — liquid bulk, dry bulk, lift-on/lift-off, and break bulk — saw a rise compared to 2020 and 2019 levels with the exception of roll-on/roll-off traffic which remained below 2019 levels.
Britain and the North accounted for 32.1% of the total tonnage of goods handled in the main ports in the second quarter which compares with 37.3% in the second quarter of last year.
Other EU countries accounted for 41.9% of the total tonnage of goods handled in the main ports, a 4.1% increase compared with last year.
