Ships three times the length of the Lansdowne Road football ground will be a regular feature on the Shannon estuary if proposals to develop a new £300 million deep-sea port, put to officials at the Department of the Taoiseach yesterday, are accepted.
The plan to develop Ballylongford, on the north Kerry coast, as a transhipment hub has been in gestation for more than 30 years. Transhipment involves a giant "mother ship" unloading its container cargo on to small ships, which would then carry on to smaller ports in Britain and Europe.
The proposal was developed by the Shannon Estuary Ports Authority and forms part of the recent KPMG report recommending the merging of that company with the Foynes Port Company in west Limerick so that a unified managerial and marketing approach for the region is adopted.
KPMG says the deep estuary waters, once a shelter for the British Atlantic fleet, are "capable of handling ships three times greater than any other Irish port". These 300-metre-long bulk carriers, capable of carrying 180,000 tonnes of cargo, are already "regularly entering the estuary with cargoes of coal for the ESB power station at Moneypoint, Co Clare", the report adds.
The transhipment hub proposal would involve major infrastructural development of the State-owned 600-acre site at Ballylongford.
"A major deep-liner operator has got to sign up with a firm commitment to underpin that level of investment," said Mr Brian Geary, chief executive of Foynes Port Company, who met Government officials yesterday as part of the delegation. "You are going into a premium league operation. You have got to deliver the goods in terms of turnaround and service."
Under the estuary arrangement, round trips between the US and Europe could be increased from 26 trips annually to 33. "The North Atlantic is the best sea-cargo route in the world," said Mr Michael Leydon, chairman of Shannon Estuary Ports Authority, who also attended yesterday's meeting. "In the short term, we think it would be all international business. But in the medium and long term, we would see opportunities to improve the infrastructure in the Mid-West".
The Minister for the Marine, Mr Fahey, was enthusiastic about the estuary's prospects when launching the report last Sunday, saying that it would probably be the most significant maritime announcement during his term of office. On Thursday, he spent the day discussing the merger and the future of Foynes and Limerick ports with the respective management boards, staff and customers. He said a case for the Ballylongford proposal will be put to international companies if the Government saw it as a realistic option.
Meanwhile, the region can look forward to the upgrading of the N69 between Foynes and Limerick, and the placing of the new Shannon and Foynes Port Company in 2002 on a sound financial footing.
This will involve paying off the Foynes company's £11 million debt. Mr Geary says top-up investment is needed so that returns are made on a capital programme to upgrade the facilities. "The company is near insolvency, as the report mentioned," Mr Geary says. "But we are able to meet our financial needs in the short term."
He said Foynes had got "a bit of a rough ride" from KPMG. The consultants describe an absence of confidence, a sense of staff apathy, overmanning issues, and "a concern that the board has allowed the financial position of the company to reach such a parlous state" in a belief that the shareholder (the Government) would bail it out of any trouble.
"A history of unhealthy rivalry" with Shannon Estuary Ports, which has "consumed board energies" is also described. "It is only fair to point out that the board of Shannon Estuary Ports has also a track record in this regard," the report adds.
While Foynes is recognised as the "premier deep-water port on the west coast of Ireland", the long-term viability of Limerick's niche port business is questioned as one of several "key issues" by KPMG.
Mr Fahey, however, said Limerick had a future despite fears over how a new Shannon bridge would affect traffic. Limerick business was saving 25,000 truck movements across the State from Cork and Dublin annually. "I certainly will be making a strong case to Government that the new crossing must facilitate development of the port, because there is a lot of work being done," he said.
He added that he was "pleasantly surprised" by the reaction from both boards and staff members on the merger moves. They come at a time described by KPMG as "ripe for a decision to be made, once and for all, on the structural and co-operative arrangements" and after a 25-year period when "very little has occurred or progressed".