Holyhead: Questions over damaged harbor reopening for Christmas

After a meeting on Monday, Mr. Skates that port operator Stena assured him there would be an answer “by Wednesday at the latest” on whether it will reopen by the end of the week, as it hoped.

However, he added that Stena and Irish Ferries were still making “every plan possible to get goods and people back to Ireland and vice versa before Christmas”, via ports in Wales and the rest of the UK.

Harris said it was “a serious concern” for people who have bought presents they hope will arrive and those trying to get home for Christmas.

Stena apologized for the cancellation of its Holyhead sailings, adding that it was “doing everything in its power to mitigate the effects of the closure on passenger and freight traffic”.

Four daily ferry services operate each way between Holyhead and Dublin, operated by Stena Line and Irish Ferries.

On average, two million passengers use Holyhead a year and around 1,200 lorries and trailers cross each day.

The closure had prompted Ireland’s national postal service to abandon plans to use Holyhead port for Christmas deliveries.

Ireland’s junior minister at the Department of Transport, James Lawless, met his Welsh counterpart Ken Skates on Sunday, and again with Stena Line on Monday.

Lawless said both ministers asked Stena Line to provide more “accurate and timely” updates on the extent of the damage and repairs needed at Holyhead.

He said that Mr. Skates had also committed to temporarily relax driving rules, as the Irish government had done at the weekend.

The Irish Department of Transport announced that it would relax rules around truckers’ opening hours until Friday 27 December, allowing drivers to work longer hours and take fewer breaks.

Mr. Lawless said that this being introduced from both sides of Holyhead would help clear the backlog of deliveries.