[ad_1]
The truck driver Paddy Neary was on his way to his cab Sunday night when the ship’s crew informed him of France’s ban on road transport from Britain due to a new strain of coronavirus.
The Co Louth carrier was told to get back to his truck below deck immediately and get off the Newhaven-Dieppe ferry, “which was not simple,” he said.
His shipment of frozen hamburgers, which would be shipped from Co Cavan to northern France in a convoy with two other Irish trucks, would not arrive at its delivery time the next day.
He was ordered out of the port and had to park in a parking lot near the southern port of England.
“We should have already downloaded in France at this stage,” Neary told The Irish Times shortly after noon on Monday.
“We don’t know if they will tell us to go home or if they will keep us cold here. We are awaiting instructions on what to do next. It is a disaster.”
Neary was one of 250 drivers stranded in Britain after France closed its borders to British truckers, including Irish drivers using the “land bridge” route, a critical transport link between Ireland and mainland Europe to carry goods. to the markets.
“This was exactly what was coming with Brexit. It has happened a week before, ”he said.
“People don’t realize the sheer volume of goods going in and out of Ireland and the UK, or the number of trucks going through Dover. It’s the same in Dublin and Holyhead. “
On Monday, Laurence O’Toole of the Co Galway-based transport company O’Toole Transport had 70 trucks on the roads of Britain and northern Europe. The night before, seven members of his office staff were busy canceling ship reservations and making new reservations after the French ban.
Drivers were ordered to leave trailers at Tilbury, a port in Essex, on the new ship reserves to Zeebrugge in Belgium. Customers planning to ship cargo to Europe this week canceled orders.
“We have drivers in England with no trailers and we have too many trailers on the continent and we have no idea how to get them back. We’re going to end up with a total team mismatch in Britain and France, ”said a busy O’Toole after a hectic 24-hour period.
“We have drivers who should be on their way home by Christmas and we have no idea what’s going to happen. We are trying to fix it and bring them back home. “
French counterparts
Government ministers and officials rushed on Monday, from Zoom’s call to Zoom’s call to meet with their French counterparts, with transport industry groups and shipping lines, to find additional ferry capacity to keep supplies in place. running and taking the drivers home four days before Christmas.
“This is a 48-hour crisis and we are moving fast and engaging at all levels of government,” said Minister of State for International Road Transport and Logistics Hildegarde Naughton.
Stena Line agreed to present plans to put a second ship, which carries mostly “downed” or unaccompanied trailers, on the Rosslare-Cherbourg route to help the trucks return to Ireland.
This means that two ships would leave Co Wexford port on Tuesday to pick up Irish trucks.
“We are testing very well what Brexit looks like if there are problems on the land bridge,” said Cormac Healy, director of Meat Industry Ireland.
France’s Covid ban has exposed capacity issues and direct travel shortages to continental Europe, a problem that transport industry groups had warned about for weeks and months.
Mr Healy said there was not enough space to transport roll-on, roll-off truck cargo, displaced from the UK “land bridge”, which is critical for “just in time” deliveries of fresh meat and chilled from Ireland to the UK and Europe in “sophisticated” cross-border supply chains.
“It works well, but we depend on having no restrictions or delays at the ports,” he said.
Healy said the meat plants were still being processed Monday, but longer delays could affect processing capacity, which could have a knock-on effect on farmers trying to sell livestock.
Irish industry was seeking confirmation from the EU that certain supply lines and “the essentiality of the fresh food movement” would be kept open with “greenways”, just like in the early days of Covid, he said.
In Co Galway, Laurence O’Toole was trying to figure out how to get a shipment of fresh seafood off an English pier delivered to her main fish market in northern France.
“Nothing is working as it should,” he said.
[ad_2]