Dublin Port is the country’s largest and most important port and is being developed to its ultimate capacity based on Masterplan 2040 by way of three Strategic Infrastructure Development (SID) projects all of which are underway.
Once these projects have been completed, the port will have reached its ultimate capacity. This will happen by 2040 some 333 years after the establishment of Dublin’s first port authority, the Ballast Office Committee. Dublin Port is, today, owned and operated by Dublin Port Company (DPC).
Once Dublin Port has reached its capacity limit by 2040, any continued growth in port volumes after that will require additional facilities at another east coast location, either by expansion of existing ports or by the greenfield development of a new port or by a combination of both.
The development of substantial new greenfield port capacity will be a major and challenging undertaking and, based on the experience of major infrastructure projects both in Ireland and elsewhere, will take a long time to complete. DPC believes that it is prudent to plan on the basis of a 20 year time horizon. The work to identify options and develop projects to provide new additional port capacity to be available in 2040 needs to start now.
The Dublin Port Post 2040 Dialogue was published in 2020 and presented DPC’s views on the nature and scale of the development that might be required to provide additional port capacity after 2040.
These views were set out in a series of papers based on the detailed knowledge and understanding developed within DPC in recent years through the delivery of the three SID projects already underway in Dublin Port.
However, there have been alternative viewpoints for many years suggesting that Dublin Port should be moved from its current location. DPC has consistently rejected this idea.
The Dublin Port Post 2040 Dialogue provided detailed and, at times, technical explanations of DPC’s thinking. These were presented as a challenge to those with alternative views on DPC’s development path. DPC invited others to critique the port company’s thinking by way of substantive papers setting out the rationale for their alternative viewpoints.
We undertook to publish all submissions and the 20 submissions we received during 2021 have now been published on this website under Responses.
We are convinced that the development path we have set out is the correct one, but, in the interests of proper planning and sustainable development, remain open to additional feedback and will publish any additional submissions we might receive.
If you would like to contribute to this continuing dialogue, please send your ideas and thoughts to: post2040@dublinport.ie
Last updated: 17th November 2021