Irish Examiner View: Improved connections to Spain welcome

Jim Meade, chief executive Iarnrod Eireann, Brittany Ferries chief executive, Christophe Mathieu, Glenn Carr, general manager Rosslare Europort and Brittany Ferries president Jean-Marc Roué at the announcement by Brittany Ferries has confirmed the introduction of a more tourism-oriented ship "Galicia" on to their Rosslare - Bilbao route from November. Picture: Mary Browne

The news this week of a new, more sophisticated, ferry service between Rosslare and Bilbao in Spain is to be welcomed on several fronts.

For far too long this country depended largely on the so-called land bridge across the UK to get its Europe-bound traffic to its destination. Brexit largely redefined what Ireland needs in terms of connectivity to Europe and, to a greater or lesser degree, the Irish authorities along with numerous commercial partners have largely overcome the land-bridge issue.

New ferry routes, most of which are largely commercially oriented, have been successfully established between Ireland and continental Europe and have been working spectacularly well.

Most of these new routes focused on northern Europe and so great swathes of the southern half of the continent remained largely ignored, although there was an established Rosslare-Bilbao route for some time, even if it was largely commercially focussed.

However, Brittany Ferries yesterday confirmed it would be introducing a new ship, the Galicia, which was only launched in December 2020 on the route from November. Undoubtedly, this will further reduce Ireland’s previous reliance on the UK land bridge.

The company are promising this new cruise ferry to take over from the previous ship that plied the route and which was really only designed for commercial traffic with limited tourist accommodation. The new ship will cater for 1,015 passengers.

In the new world order in which we now find ourselves, it can only be regarded as a good thing that our connectivity to our EU partners is increasing and becoming more sophisticated in very short order.