3 minute read
COMMEnT
Brexit, Covid, Climate Change and serious Supply Chain disruption made 2021 a tough year. While looking ahead to 2022, six months ago we might have thought that COVID-19 would have been beaten by now, it is now clear that these issues will play just as large an influence on all our lives next year as they have done throughout the current year.
Writing in mid-November it is not clear how Britain’s relations with the EU and elsewhere are going to be repaired. It is clear, however, that projects such as Amazon building a Distribution Centre at Baldonnell and an Irish Dairy exporter opening its Distribution Centre at the Port of Dunkerque are literally concrete evidence that Brexit is real. Add to that Ryanair de-listing its shares off the London Stock Exchange and the flurry of bulletins and webinars coming from the UK Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA) about the full implementation of controls on foods and other agricultural products moving into and through Britain. One can really be forced to give up any hope of a return to ‘normal’. Looking forward into 2022 it is almost certain that there will be a significant increase in Ferry and Containership services operating into and out of Irish ports meeting the ever growing demands for carriage of goods, both those shifting from Britain and those generated by strong economic growth.
That growth pattern has, of course, been distorted by COVID-19 and the consequent lockdowns affecting every developed country. These have led to an acceleration in demand for manufactured goods as householders displace their expenditure on services with the purchase of durable and other goods. Looking ahead in 2022, there is no reason to believe that this new spending pattern is going to change in any substantial way. One thing that could, in fact, drive sales and deliveries of manufactured goods up further might be an easing of the shortages of microchips, packaging etc., that have forced many manufacturers to defer deliveries during 2021.
One ‘positive’ of COVID-19 for Irish manufacturing and retail businesses has been the lack of tourists and their cars seeking space on ferries making it possible to accommodate drivers in a safe and spread-out manner. During 2021 the switch from driver accompanied to unaccompanied trailer shipment has accelerated and this should mean that when the tourists return there will be plenty of room for them aboard the ferries.
I hope that in future years we will all look back and be able to say that 2021 was the year in which the world understood and embraced the climate change message. In the US, Australia, China and elsewhere there have been so many “once in a hundred years” weather events, most recently the cutting off the City of Vancouver from the rest of Canada.
I had hoped that 2021 would be the year in which the Irish Government would commit, as Governments elsewhere have done, to a serious public and freight transport agenda, but the only clear decision seems to have been to put the Dublin Metro and other projects that would de-congest the Dublin region back by ten years. At the launch of the XPO Logistics, Rail Freight service linking Waterford port with Ballina (Mayo) there was much talk about a rail freight development project which included, for example, the purchase or leasing of 150 wagons to completely replace Irish Rail’s fleet but things have gone noticeably quiet on that front. It would appear to the outsider that the environmental dividend of shifting the carriage of freight (and passengers) to rail is little, if at all, valued.
Will 2022 be the year in which shipping lines, ports and inland carriers throughout the globe get on top of things and ‘on-time’ deliveries rise above the current about 40% level? Will the return of passenger traffic generate more capacity for air cargo? Not really, as airlines sideline their wide-body aircraft and turn to smaller aircraft with little or no cargo capacity?
We live in interesting times.
