Special Report 119 - Brexit physical infrastructure delivery and use
Following a referendum in June 2016, the United Kingdom (UK) officially notified the European Council on 29 March 2017 that it would leave the European Union (EU). A Withdrawal Agreement signed on 17 October 2019 came into effect on 31 January 2020 when the UK officially left the EU.
There was a transition period until 31 December 2020 to allow for negotiation of the new EU/UK relationship, as the UK would no longer be part of the EU Customs Union and Single Market. This meant that, after 31 December 2020, goods entering the EU from the UK would be treated as imports from a ‘third country’, and goods leaving the EU to the UK would be treated as third-country exports. Relevant customs declarations and specified EU control checks would be required to protect animal, plant and public health. Also, certain duties and taxes would need to be applied such as customs duties, value added tax and excise on importation.
Up to the end of the transition period, there was considerable uncertainty as to whether a free trade agreement could be put in place. Also, there was uncertainty for both public bodies and trade/businesses on the level of control checks that might be required and whether customs duties would apply. This meant that the relevant public bodies also had to prepare for a possible ‘no-deal’ Brexit.
Brexit, in particular a ‘no-deal’ Brexit, represented a risk of substantial economic damage for the Irish economy, including significant additional financial costs, and long delays for traffic at Irish, British and European seaports. This was due to Ireland’s high-value trading relationship with the UK and reliance on the UK ‘landbridge’ for a substantial part of Ireland’s trade with continental European markets.
Immediately following the UK referendum in 2016, relevant State agencies began their own internal planning to respond operationally to Brexit. The agencies whose operations were most likely to be affected by Brexit were: the Office of the Revenue Commissioners (Revenue); the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine (DAFM); and the Health Service Executive (HSE).
While the initial focus of the Brexit planning was for an orderly UK withdrawal (including a transition period until the end of 2020), planning at the end of 2018 had a greater focus on a ‘disorderly Brexit scenario’. On 24 December 2020, just prior to the ending of the transition period, the EU and UK agreed a Trade and Cooperation Agreement, which came into effect on 1 January 2021.
Programme governance and decision making
A steering group, known as the Brexit Infrastructure Group (BIG), was responsible for overseeing the delivery of the Brexit physical infrastructure projects. A Brexit Infrastructure Working Group (BIWG) — reporting to the BIG — was also established for project monitoring. In addition to the BIG and BIWG, regular informal meetings at Secretary General level, chaired by the Secretary General of the Department of the Taoiseach, were held to discuss Brexit.
The overlapping of participation in the BIG and the Department of the Taoiseach-led Brexit group, and the frequency of such meetings, indicates there was a high level of consultation around coordination of the Brexit infrastructure projects. Record keeping in relation to the meetings focused on documenting agreed actions, rather than on the reasoning for the decisions.
Programme business case
Each of the project sponsoring agencies concluded that the existing available facilities were insufficient to handle the anticipated increase in the volume of control activity required post-Brexit. Therefore, significant redevelopment and enhancement of existing facilities was recommended.
Prior to Brexit, there was free movement of goods between the UK and the EU, with little documentation of the volume and nature of goods moving between the UK and Ireland. As a result, all the agencies faced a challenge in estimating the specifications of the facilities that would be required post-Brexit.
A business case prepared in October 2018 set out the size and scale of the facilities to be provided at Dublin Port, Rosslare and Dublin Airport. The business case assumed the ‘worst case’ outcome whereby the full suite of EU customs and other import controls would be required for post-Brexit imports from Britain.
The specifications for the proposed facilities in the business case were clear and necessary for physical planning purposes. However, there was an absence in the business case of relevant information and analysis to explain how or why the specifications for each facility were arrived at e.g. relating the specifications for the facilities to the expected port traffic processing/transit time. In the absence of the underlying workings, it is not possible to verify the basis for the size and scale of each of the proposed facilities.
Traffic flow simulations
A technical modelling exercise undertaken by Revenue (with external consultant assistance) in 2019 to examine the impact of proposed new processes on Dublin Port traffic and facilities, identified potential bottlenecks post-Brexit at some of the proposed port facilities, with significant waiting times for traffic in the port of up to 14 hours. To minimise potential delays in the movement of goods and traffic through the ports, the volume of risk-based control checks by the relevant agencies was adjusted to align with the available infrastructure capacity.
A subsequent Revenue simulation exercise undertaken in mid-2020 indicated that, by adjusting risk levels to minimise delays in the ports, the planned port facilities in Dublin Port and Rosslare/Kilrane would not reach full capacity at any point in the envisaged post-Brexit traffic scenarios.
Delivery of infrastructure programme
The Office of Public Works (OPW) was tasked with delivery of the infrastructure programme, which ultimately comprised 27 physical infrastructure projects for development in Dublin Port (19 projects), Rosslare (seven projects) and Dublin Airport (one project). Work commenced in early 2019 and the projects were delivered and became operational over the period 2019 to 2022.
A longer-term major project to redevelop Rosslare Europort to accommodate greater volumes of traffic and to comply with EU regulations was completed in October 2025. That project is outside the scope of this examination.
Commissioning of the infrastructure projects
To save time on delivery of the projects, the OPW used the services of a construction contractor it had already engaged under a contract for the repair and maintenance of Government offices in the Dublin area (based on an agreed schedule of job payment rates), and for minor construction projects (up to €750,000 each).
The anticipated value of the maintenance contract when it was placed in October 2018 was €15 million (excluding VAT) over three years (with provision in the contract for a further, one-year extension). As disclosed in the OPW’s 2023 appropriation account, the outturn for expenditure under the contract to end 2023 was €125 million, including the cost of the Brexit infrastructure works.*
Up to the end of 2023, total expenditure incurred by the OPW on the construction of the 27 Brexit infrastructure projects totalled €71.2 million (excluding VAT). While a number of the Brexit projects were valued at prices under the maintenance contract threshold, the bulk of the expenditure incurred was on projects valued in excess of the threshold, and so represented a significant extension of the maintenance contract.
Only around a quarter (27%) of the Brexit construction expenditure was based on the schedule of rates agreed for the maintenance contract. The remaining three-quarters of the works commissioned were priced outside of the contract schedule of rates. The OPW has stated that those works were tendered by the maintenance contractor, and so were priced at market rates.
* See the OPW’s 2023 appropriation account (page 6).
Cost controls and apportionment
In addition to the construction costs of €71.2 million as noted above, the OPW also incurred site costs, VAT on construction, quantity surveyor and other professional fees, fit-out costs, etc. The aggregate expenditure recorded by the OPW in respect of the 27 projects was just under €108 million, inclusive of VAT.
The practice of the OPW acting as an agent for other government departments and offices in procuring and delivering capital projects is well established. In November 2019, the Department of Public Expenditure directed the OPW to apportion the Brexit project costs appropriately to the respective project sponsoring agencies. While the practice around such recoupment is reasonably straightforward where there is a single principal, the process for the Brexit projects was more complex because there were multiple agencies involved to varying degrees in each of the projects.
The OPW’s initial accounting arrangements for the Brexit programme did not provide for a project-by-project recording or apportionment of costs. Expenditure incurred by the OPW was recouped from the sponsoring agencies’ votes, but detailed reconciliations were not provided to the vote holders. In line with Public Financial Procedures provisions, the sponsoring agencies were required each year to pay amounts certified as correct to their votes by the OPW. However, a number of significant errors were identified in the annual amounts paid over.
An analysis of the Brexit expenditure provided by the OPW for the purposes of this examination indicates the sums apportioned to, and recouped from, the individual votes. However, the analysis does not provide sufficient detail to allow the appropriateness of the apportionment of costs between the various votes to be verified.
Project completion reviews
The Public Spending Code requires that a project completion review is carried out at the end of a capital infrastructure project.** To date, the OPW has not undertaken project completion reviews in respect of the Brexit projects. It has stated that it intends to carry out such a review once the whole Brexit programme, including the Rosslare Europort project, has been completed i.e. post October 2025.
A more timely review of the stand-alone projects completed to date — and already brought into use — would enhance the learning opportunities for the OPW in delivering improved performance and in providing an optimum service to its clients and taxpayers.
** The Public Spending Code was replaced by the Infrastructure Guidelines effective from 1 January 2024.
Use of the Brexit facilities
Examination fieldwork and analysis of relevant data provided by the sponsoring agencies indicate underuse of many of the Brexit infrastructure facilities.
Dublin Port
Analysis of information provided by Revenue on inbound ferry movements at Dublin Port for each of the years 2021 to 2023 indicated that, on average, 88% of vehicles were free to leave the port on arrival as all the required documentary checks had been completed prior to arrival in the port. Separately, the analysis of data provided by Revenue for one week in December 2023 found that 99% of vehicles that arrived during a peak period (458 vehicles) exited the port on disembarking the ferry, with only approximately 1% (five vehicles) requiring documentary checks at the port or a customs physical check.
Analysis of data provided by DAFM for the two-month period October and November 2023 showed that, of the maximum number of vehicles of interest to DAFM at a peak period (57), just four required a physical check, eight a live animal check and five a container seal check. The remaining 40 vehicles were able to leave the port immediately on arrival.
Only 3% of the 6,600 consignments identified as being of interest to the HSE Environmental Health Service for October and November 2023, required a physical or sample check.
Data captured on usage of the heavy goods vehicle (HGV) parking provided at Dublin Port (409 spaces) indicates significant excess capacity. However, the surrender of terminal 7 at Dublin Port in March 2025 has significantly reduced the number of available parking spaces.
Up to the end of 2023, Revenue captured data on the usage of the HGV parking facilities by manually counting five times a day the number of HGVs parked up. The usefulness of the captured data as a reliable indicator of the use of the HGV parking facilities for UK traffic is limited. An automated system would be more efficient and provide more complete and accurate usage data.
Also, the throughput at each facility is not measured in a systematic way. The automated recording of transit times to capture data on throughput timing and the time taken to carry out inspections and other checks would provide significantly better data on the use of the facilities. The development of key performance indicators and improved data recording would also allow for better planning in the case of emergency events.
Rosslare, Kilrane
The site acquisition and construction costs incurred in relation to temporary facilities provided at Rosslare/Kilrane amounted to €14.8 million. These facilities will no longer be required for direct port services when the new terminal in Rosslare Europort is fully in use.
The average number of vehicles per ferry arrival in Rosslare in 2021 – 2023 was just 24. Of these, a maximum of 10% engaged with the facilities at Kilrane, mainly for documentary checks. The remaining 90% or more of vehicles/trailers were able to leave the port on arrival. Revenue has attributed this to the technology driven ‘real-time’ customs clearance of goods while the ferry is in transit between the UK and Ireland.
Review of facilities
The assets acquired through the Brexit infrastructure programme were delivered within a short time and against the background of considerable uncertainty around the Brexit outcome and severe Covid-19 restrictions. The facilities appear to be fit for the intended purposes. The question of how they would have served in the event that a ‘no-deal’ Brexit had gone ahead is now moot.
Planning for public service delivery in the context of highly uncertain future events is challenging, and carries the inherent risk that resources may be applied to uses that ultimately are not required. In such circumstances, planned developments are in effect a form of insurance, and the value for money they represent must be judged in those terms.
The current underuse of many of the constructed Brexit infrastructure facilities reflects the fact that the eventual Brexit agreement was more benign than was planned for. The underuse may also be partly attributed to trader outreach work undertaken by State agencies and to the rapid changes in technology, trade patterns and supply chains. Challenges in accurately assessing the infrastructure needs in the absence of detailed data on which to base requirements may also be a factor.
Ongoing re-evaluation of the Brexit infrastructure is required to ensure that available facilities are put to the best possible use in a timely way. Some of the additional capacity provided through the Brexit projects has already been vacated by the sponsoring agencies.
The OPW has engaged consultants to undertake a strategic assessment of all State facilities at Dublin Port. Planning for the future use of the State-owned site in Kilrane once the new terminal in Rosslare Europort is fully operational, is also ongoing.
