As an island economy on the periphery of Europe and its major trading partners, it is vitally important that Ireland's competitiveness reaching important overseas markets is preserved. Irish trades depend heavily on short sea shipping with an estimated 99% of Ireland's trade by weight carried by sea. The role of the IMDO therefore is to assist in preserving, expanding and developing shortsea links.

Short Sea Shipping is a successful mode of transport in Europe. For instance, in the 1990's it was the only mode that was able to keep pace with the growth of road transport. It has in fact started to outpace road transport. Short Sea Shipping is also an obvious choice to play a key role in reaching the objectives of the European Transport Policy. It can help curb the forecasted substantial increase in heavy goods vehicle traffic, rebalance the modal shares, bypass land bottlenecks, and it is safe and sustainable.

The IMDO is the designated Shortsea Promotion Centre in Ireland for shortsea shipping in line with EU policy and has been a member of the European Shortsea Network (ESN)since March 2001.

The ESN, collectively, is a powerful and unique resource, bringing together a high level of pan-European expertise, in the Shortsea shipping and logistics sectors. Its shared experiences at a national level provide a multifaceted approach to problem solving and seeking innovative ways to progress our common policy objectives.

The growing strength and effectiveness of the shortsea network coincides with a renewed and prominent focus at European level on the role of shortsea shipping and its strategic importance to the European Community members.

At present, there are 19 other members of the ESN:

SPC Belgium
SPC Bulgaria
SPC Croatia
SPC Cyprus
SPC Denmark
SPC Finland
SPC France
SPC Germany
SPC Greece
SPC Holland
SPC Italy
SPC Malta
SPC Norway
SPC Poland
SPC Portugal
SPC Spain
SPC Sweden
SPC UK

The ESN web portal boasts Europe’s only comprehensive search engine for pan-European liner services. The ESN portal, features a unique database search facility, which can name and list pan-European liner services and bulk services on a port-to-port basis or country-to-country basis. For the first time, a comprehensive overview of shortsea services in Europe is available for the shipping sector through www.shortsea.info