Tempers were frayed at Dublin Port yesterday among passengers waiting to find out whether the 21.45 boat to Holyhead would depart on schedule.
Some of the Irish Ferries passengers had been stranded in Dublin Port's draughty new terminal since 7 the previous evening. They were without heat or food for much of that period. They received little information about when they could expect to leave or even whether they would be allowed to sleep at the port again overnight.
Many passengers were travelling on a shoestring budget and were down to their last few pounds by yesterday afternoon. Queues for food and hot drinks were a quarter of an hour long. After the ferry was cancelled on Saturday night queues for public telephones took up to half an hour.
Car passengers were frustrated at their cars being locked into a queue for a ferry that was not going to sail. Others railed at what they regarded as the failure of the ferry companies to disseminate information in an organised way. The most exasperated passengers jeered at inaudible "information" announcements over the terminal's spanking new public address system.
Over 2,000 people were gathered at the port at one stage yesterday. While most acknowledged there was little Irish Ferries could do about the weather, they were less charitable about the organisational abilities of the ferry company and the port authority's staff.
Mr Patrick Regan, his wife and four children had been trying to get out of Ireland since Friday. Originally scheduled to depart from Rosslare to Pembroke, they were diverted to Dublin when that sailing was cancelled.
At 3 p.m. yesterday they were cold and bleary-eyed after a very fitful sleep. Their four children, aged four to 12, were getting dangerously bored, and their dog had been confined to the car for nearly 24 hours.
"One of the guys working here last night told us that the reason the place was so cold was that the heating automatically went off at a certain time and they didn't know how to switch it back on manually.
"There were no facilities to get something hot to eat. The ferry company was completely disorganised. Everyone we spoke to said something different," Mr Regan said.
"We all feel like we've got the flu after last night. All the kids are tired and there's nothing for them to do. There's no play area or anything for the little ones."
Mr Tony Brown, a restaurateur from Stockport, said: "It was pretty dismal last night. The people working here last night weren't able to tell us at 8 p.m. whether we would be able to stay the night here. We were told we might have to leave at 3.30 a.m. because Irish Ferries don't own the building. It's rented to them from the port authorities.
"In the end everyone just settled down in a corner and they wouldn't have had a hope of moving us anyway.
"I'm freezing. I was having a nice snooze until an announcement came over the speakers. It sounded important, but the sound is so weak I couldn't hear a word of it."
Mr Edouard Ritz, a student heading for Paris via Britain, felt the port authorities were ill-equipped to cope with the unusually adverse weather conditions.
"All the facilities here can only cope with passengers entering and leaving the building quickly. They're just not prepared for a large number of people staying here for an extended period."
Mr Tony Kelly, marketing director of Irish Ferries, said the company had been given the all-clear to sail yesterday morning, but was advised at the last moment that weather conditions in Holyhead might not be suitable for docking in the afternoon. He said the problem arose not from the severity of the weather but from its persistence over a number of days.
"Our paramount concern is the safety of the passengers, the crew and our vessels. We will take responsibility for delays that lie within our responsibility, but we cannot be responsible for the effects of the weather.
"While we've every sympathy for the passengers who had to stay here overnight and were in a dreadful position, no one would have thanked us for sailing in unsafe conditions."