A decline in Irish Ports traffic even before the coronavirus pandemic hit our shores, new figures from the Central Statistics Office show.

The main ports in the State handled 12.8 million tonnes of goods in the final three months of 2019, down 3.7 per cent compared to the 13.3 million tonnes recorded in the fourth quarter of 2018.

On an annual basis, ports handled 53.2 million tonnes of goods in 2019, a decrease of 3.4 per cent compared to the 55 million reported a year earlier.

Goods forwarded from Irish ports totalled 17.8 million tonnes last year, while 35.4 million tonnes of goods were received.

The number of vessels arriving in Irish ports in 2019 fell by 2.4 per cent with the gross tonnage of arriving vessels up 5.4 per cent to 278.8 million tonnes.

For further details on Dublin Port figures, The Irish Times reports.