Brittany Ferries resumes freight links with Ireland

Very hard hit by the health crisis and Brexit, Brittany Ferries wants to get back on the water. In a tweet published Monday evening, the chairman of the company’s supervisory board announced the resumption of shipping lines from Saint-Malo and Roscoff to Ireland in early February, two months earlier than expected.

“Because the fishing industry needs us, because our industrial and farmer friends are waiting for us for their exports, because the Brittany Region wants this line, Armorique will start these links at the beginning of February”, indicated Jean-Marc Roué . A little earlier in the day, the Brittany region had asked the shipping company to resume “from the beginning of February cross-Channel freight from Roscoff and Saint-Malo”.

“It is essential to see the flows resume”

“I do not want us to suffer Brexit,” its president Loïg Chesnais-Girard declared. It is essential to see the flows resume for our economy and our jobs in the ports, in the fishing and halieutic sector as well as in the companies of Brittany ”. “There are real needs for our companies and we cannot leave our ports without activity indefinitely seeing the logistics flows spinning in heavy goods vehicles towards the north,” he added on Tuesday. On Friday, the management of the port of Cherbourg indicated that truck traffic between Cherbourg and Ireland had tripled due to Brexit.

With the teams of @bferriescorpo , I decided this evening to relaunch, two months in advance, our relationship #Roscoff/#SaintMalo–#Ireland. @IrlEmbParis @le_nzet

– Jean-Marc Roué (@jmrouebferries) January 25, 2021

The region has also indicated that, in conjunction with the Minister of the Sea Annick Girardin, it will apply for “the Brexit adjustment reserve”, the European fund to help companies most affected by Brexit, in order to support the company based in Roscoff.