Delivery backlogs caused by the closure of Holyhead Port in the wake of Storm Darragh last weekend have been almost completely cleared, but the travel plans of tens of thousands of people with ferry crossings booked over the next 10 days remain under threat.
In an update on Sunday afternoon, An Post said all but 16,000 of the 500,000 parcels affected by the closure of Holyhead Port had been processed by Sunday afternoon.
The postal company said it delivered 350,000 parcels to customers on Saturday, with a similar number likely to reach their final destination on Monday.
An Post said it was also securing air freight capacity to get parcels and mail that would traditionally have shipped via Holyhead moved out of Ireland to meet latest posting date promises.
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The update came in advance of a meeting on Sunday evening between Minister of State at the Department of Transport James Lawless and the Welsh cabinet secretary for transport to discuss plans to clear the trade backlog following the closure of the port.
The meeting with Ken Skates had been scheduled for 6.30pm and will explore all possible solutions to the transport crisis including the use of alternative Welsh ports.
Additional ferry capacity has been created across all other ferry lanes into Ireland while UK- and EU-Ireland shipping routes have deployed larger vessels and additional sailings to offset some of the consequences of Holyhead’s continued closure.
Minister for Transport Eamon Ryan will also meet the British cabinet secretary Heidi Alexander in the days ahead.
Mr Ryan and Mr Lawless are also set to meet logistics stakeholders on Monday and will hold separate talks with Irish Ferries and Stena Line.
The Department of Transport has also granted a temporary and limited relaxation of drivers hours rules until December 27th.
Among other things it will see the maximum daily driving time extended from nine to 11 hours but not more than twice a week while the required weekly rest period will also be reduced from 45 hours to 24 hours under the derogation.
While the docking berths at Holyhead could reopen towards the end of this week according to the authorities there, Mr Lawless has warned that it is going to be a case of hoping for the best but planning for the worst.
[ Holyhead Port damage: Have your Christmas present parcels been delayed?Opens in new window ]
If the port does remain closed beyond next Friday it will leave the travel plans of tens of thousands of people in disarray.
About 33,000 vehicles typically cross the Irish Sea from Holyhead to Dublin during the Christmas period, with the ferries carrying as many as 100,000 passengers.
Additional capacity is being provided from Rosslare with Irish Ferries assigning the WB Yeats to replace the Isle of Innisfree this week. Stena Line has also introduced an additional sailing to Fishguard.
Travel writer and owner of the Travel Extra website Eoghan Corry said Irish ferry companies and cargo ships have “never had to deal with a port closure on this scale and it shows how vulnerable we are”.
He said it would be “very lucky” if the port reopens this week.
However he noted that ferry crossings amounted for less than 10 per cent of the traffic coming into Ireland over Christmas so the scale of the crisis would not be as great as it was before the era of low-cost flights.
Despite the changing nature of travel between the two islands, Mr Corry said the disruption would be “hugely inconvenient for people who use the ferry for the presents they plan to bring – people bring boot loads of them and you can’t really do that on a plane”.
He also noted that while ferry companies are excellent at managing disruptions caused by weather, they were under severe pressure this week.
“They are asking impacted customers to re-book online because they’re not set up to handle the volume of changes and that leaves people confused,” he said, adding that “there will be disruptions and delays no matter what happens.”
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