A major expansion of the jetty at Shannon Foynes Port, as well as the opening of a large industrial serviced logistics hub, which will position the port to become an international logistics location of scale, is being formally opened today.
It comes as a result of an investment of €32 million on upgrading the freight landing and storage facilities by the Shannon Foynes Port company along with funds from the EU's Connecting Europe Facility (CEF).
It follows two years of expansion works, which has delivered an additional 117 metre long jetty, and over 12,000sq/m of jetty freight set down space.
In addition, a 38 hectare site to develop over 55,000sq/m of modern logistics warehousing capacity, has also been expanded.
Foynes has one of the deepest natural harbours in Europe allowing large cargo vessels to sail along the Shannon estuary, and this investment will enable the ambitious objectives set out in the company’s Vision 2041 masterplan.
This targets the estuary as a global offshore wind energy hub, and logistics centre, at which massive offshore wind turbines could be landed to harness the huge wind power potential off the west coast.
It is also envisaged that the improved and expanded port jetty and logistics facilities could lessen congestion at Dublin Port, so that freight could be landed at Foynes and quickly become part of the national supply chain.
Minister of State James Lawless said the expansion reflects both the ambition and opportunity of the port to deepen its impact significantly at a national level, but also internationally, in the area of offshore energy and logistics supply chain.
Shannon Foynes Port CEO Pat Keating said the expansion is a major investment in the future work of the port with two key objectives in mind.
"It will accelerate our journey to become a world leader in offshore renewable energy by harnessing our limitless wind energy capacity off the Atlantic seaboard, and secondly enhance our freight capacity massively by giving us extra quayside space and one of the largest port logistics parks in the country.
"When you combine this with the investment by Irish Rail in re-establishing the rail link to Foynes, along with the new Foynes Adare motorway which will also have direct access to the port, we will have a Tier 1 port that is amongst the most accessible in Europe.
"When this infrastructure is finalised in the coming years, this port will be able to reach 75% of Ireland's trade within two and a half hours. With that, for example, we’ll have the potential to move goods from here all the way up to Kildare as fast as they’ll reach there from Dublin today.
"That’s not competing with Dublin, it’s complementing and taking pressure off the capital. Where it is bringing competition is in terms of making Ireland more competitive. Better supply chain makes us more attractive for investment.
"It’s also very much in keeping with Project Ireland 2040 in that it’s rebalancing the national economy by improving supply chain. That’s the vision and it’s beginning to be realised."
