Massive fall-off in business at Galway Harbour

By Dara Bradley

The economic recession has resulted in a massive falloff in traffic through Galway Harbour – the number of merchant ships docking here has more than halved since the ‘building boom’ years and the tonnage the ships carry has also dropped significantly.

In 2005, 419 merchant ships brought 959,000 tonnes of goods to Galway Harbour but in 2010 only 187 merchant ships arrived carrying just 630,000 tonnes, 232 fewer ships and 329,000 tonnes less.

Despite the reduction in traffic and tonnage, the Central Statistics Office’s latest release, Statistics on Port Traffic, showed that Galway Harbour remains Ireland’s seventh busiest port in terms of tonnage traffic.

A spokesperson for the harbour said, like most businesses in the recession compared with the boom years, things are just quieter.

He said that in 2005 there was a building boom in the city and a huge demand for oil and building materials. Since the property collapse, this demand has plummeted and so, too, has the traffic throughput at the port.

The harbour spokesperson said: “Most of the downturn recorded in the figures is due to the recession. About 80% of our goods are liquids, oils and petrol.

“We have the normal turnover for the local market which is steady but in 2005 and those years there was a lot of building going on and that meant there was a big demand with heavy machinery and you had factories that had larger outputs and were using diesel products. But, as you know, that has changed and so the port is not as busy.”

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune.