#shipping - Leaders in politics and business from Normandy visited Dublin last week to discuss contingency plans for Brexit including cargo ships travelling directly to French ports to bypass the UK “landbridge” to the EU.

As The Irish Times reports, Hervé Morin, the president of Normandy, outlined to business figures the increased numbers of customs officials and border inspection controls for animal and food health checks planned for the ports of Cherbourg, Dieppe (see Afloat piece) and Caen-Ouistreham in order to be prepared for the UK’s departure from the EU on March 29th.

The three ports, which handle two million passengers and 200,000 heavy goods vehicles every year, are looking to maintain existing traffic with the UK post-Brexit.

Normandy officials were in Dublin to attract new business by selling the attractiveness of direct traffic to French ports should customs checks congest the landbridge route.

Mr Morin assured Irish business figures and officials on his visit that the French ports would be ready for a hard Brexit as a result of a €30 million investment for checkpoints at the three ports.

He said that Cherbourg, an Irish Ferries route from Dublin, had taken measures to account for the configuration of traffic at the port, including the handling of Irish and English traffic driving off ferries.

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