Total tonnes of goods handled by Irish ports in Quarter 1 (Q1) 2024 increased by 2% when compared with Q1 2023.
Goods forwarded from Irish ports amounted to 3.8 million tonnes in Q1 2024, down 5% on Q1 2023.
Goods received amounted to nearly 8.3 million tonnes in Q1 2024, up 5% on Q1 2023.
During Q1 2024, 2,488 vessels arrived in the seven main Irish ports compared with 2,612 in Q1 2023.
Dublin Port accounted for 61% of all vessel arrivals in Irish ports in Q1 2024.
| Tonnage of goods handled by main Irish ports, Quarter 1 2022-2024 | ||||
| '000 tonnes | ||||
| Category of goods | Q1 2022 | Q1 2023 | Q1 2024 | % Change Q1 2023-2024 |
| Liquid bulk | 2,638 | 2,729 | 2,601 | -5% |
| Dry bulk | 3,782 | 3,066 | 3,321 | 8% |
| Lift-on/lift-off | 2,012 | 1,945 | 2,057 | 6% |
| Roll-on/roll-off | 3,956 | 3,899 | 3,862 | -1% |
| Break bulk & other goods | 265 | 272 | 259 | -5% |
| Total | 12,653 | 11,912 | 12,100 | 2% |
Figure 1 shows the tonnage of goods handled by Irish ports. There were quarterly percentage decreases in Liquid Bulk (-5%), Roll-On/Roll-Off (-1%) and Break bulk and all other goods (-5%).
On 13 November 2024 a revision was made to Table 5. This was due to a minor change of data from Cork Port. All other port data remains unchanged.
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Statistician's Comment
The Central Statistics Office (CSO) has today (25 July 2024) published Statistics of Port Traffic results for Quarter 1 (Q1) 2024.
Commenting on the annual figures, Damien Lenihan, Statistician in the Transport Division, said: “Irish ports handled 12.1 million tonnes of goods in January, February, March (Q1) 2024. This was an increase of 2% compared with Q1 2023.
Goods forwarded from Irish ports amounted to 3.8 million tonnes in Q1 2024, while nearly 8.3 million tonnes of goods were received (See Table 1).
Vessel Analysis
The total number of vessels that arrived in the seven main Irish ports during Q1 2024 fell by 5% when compared with Q1 2023 (See Table 2).
Dublin Port accounted for 61% of all vessel arrivals in Irish ports and for 49% of the total tonnage of goods handled in Q1 2024.
Great Britain & Northern Ireland accounted for 32% of the total tonnage of goods handled in the main ports by region of trade in Q1 2024. EU countries made up 51% of the total tonnage of goods handled in the main ports (See Table 5).”