According to the Central Statistics Office, Northern Ireland and Britain accounted for 29.4 per cent of the total tonnage of goods handled in the seven main ports in the Republic in the first quarter of 2021.

As the new CSO figures show, this compares with 39.5 per cent in the first quarter of 2020. The decline in share reflects a Brexit effect that was also reported in figures published by the Dublin Port Company in April.

Other EU countries accounted for 43.2 per cent of the total tonnage of goods handled in the main ports, an 8.6 percentage point increase compared with the same quarter in 2020.

For further figures, The Irish Times reports.