Displaying items by tag: Maritime Connectivity
Chief executive of ferry operator Irish Continental Group (ICG) has warned that any move by the new Government to extend a subsidy scheme to keep certain sea routes going during the Covid-19 pandemic would be a “waste of taxpayers’ money” and further distort the market.
The last government committed at the start of April to provide up to €15 million of so-called public service order (PSO) subventions for three months on loss-making ferry routes between Dublin and Cherbourg, Rosslare to Fishguard and Pembroke in Wales, and Cherbourg in France and Bilbao in Spain.
It is understood that officials who report to Hildegarde Naughton, the new super junior minister for international transport, are actively considering an extension of the current PSO, which runs to this middle of this month.
“The department can confirm that a review of the Covid-19 PSO Support Scheme for Maritime Connectivity is under way at present. It would be inappropriate to pre-empt the outcome of that review,” said a spokeswoman for the Department of Transport, which is being subsumed into the new Department for Climate Action, Communication Networks and Transport.
ICG, owner of Irish Ferries, was due, along with Swedish-owned Stena Line and France’s Brittany Ferries, to be the beneficiaries from the subsidy. However, ICG said last month that it had not participated in the initiative, saying the model was “liable to create distortions in the marketplace and could be open to legal challenge”.
Speaking to The Irish Times on Tuesday, ICG chief executive Eamonn Rothwell said that his company has written a number of times in recent months to Department of Transport officials campaigning against the PSO.
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