New port for the Greater Dublin

Following studies, Bremore in Fingal Co, Dublin, was selected for a new deepwater port.

Baxter Eadie was commissioned to undertake the study of port capacity, capacity utilisation and future trends.

They estimated that Ireland’s ports will have a serious capacity deficit by 2014 particularly in unitised trade on the east coast. Overall they estimated growth of freight handled at Irish ports of 35% in the period 2003 to 2014.

DPC hopes to develop “an integrated 24-hour, state of the art, deepwater port and logistics centre away from the existing congested hub of Dublin city.” The site is already rail linked and adjacent to the M1 motorway 20 minutes from Dublin.

The project is proposed in three phases with Phase 1 catering for up to 5m tonnes of freight (to include 250,000TEUs, 350,000 ro-ro units and general and bulk cargoes). The first phase development will provide 500mtrs of linear quay for container and general cargo handling, two ro-ro and one high speed ferry berth for road freight, car and foot passenger traffic. The depth alongside will be in the order of 10.5 metres below CD, with a potential for future deepening to 12.0 metres.

Port designers, HR Wallingford, have prepared the port masterplan.