Mr. Eoin Gavin:

I thank the committee for the opportunity to set out our concerns regarding the proposed modifications to Directive 96/53/EC. Our position and our lobbying, in Ireland and in Europe, has always been about the greening of commercial road transport at source, improving road safety and encouraging innovation, in order to get goods moved from A to B as efficiently and safely as possible. The current proposal goes against all these trends. It is coming from a very strong rail lobby, particularly in Austria, which is a transit country that wants to see large volumes of goods being moved on rail. Ireland, on the other hand, is a peripheral country at the edge of Europe in which 99% of our goods are moved by road. We cannot get away from that reality or alter the prominence of road as a mode of transport. We are asking the committee and the Government to do their best to work with our industry to ensure goods are moved as efficiently as possible.

Members will be familiar with the European modular system, which takes one truck unit - that is, one engine and one driver - off the road by allowing a 20 ft. truck, which is the normal distribution truck in a city or town, to have an articulated trailer linked onto its back. The equipment involved requires no large investment from the industry or manufacturing and has been used, for example, for the haulage of timber in Norway, Sweden and Finland for the past 15 or 20 years. The current proposal is to ban all such modular configurations, including in the countries in which they have operated for more than a decade. We appeal to the committee to lobby hard in support of the European modular concept. In addition, we ask members to support our call to maintain existing weight and dimension requirements within member states. We have seen in the past week how the reduction in the height threshold to 4.65 m has had implications for trade between Ireland and the United Kingdom, where the same restriction does not apply. We ask the committee to investigate in due course the impact this anomaly is having on trade between the two jurisdictions.

On the issue of aerodynamics, recent developments in the United States have seen haulage vehicles beginning to look more like aeroplanes, being narrower at the back. European legislation will not allow for that, because of the requirements regarding maximum allowable lengths and widths. In the absence of such restrictions on dimensions, there is room in the United States for experiment. We encourage the committee to lobby for greater flexibility in this regard which would allow for aerodynamic kits to be fitted either in the front or back of vehicles. It is all about greening the industry.

In regard to the enforcement of weight and dimension thresholds across different sectors, we have a major problem in this country with out-of-State operators who are failing to comply with the requirements of road traffic legislation. For instance, we had a situation in Foynes in September regarding the transport of wind turbines. We are calling on the committee to conduct a full investigation, without delay, into illegal haulage practices by out-of-State operators. We have written to the Chairman on this matter and are appealing again today for his support.

My colleague, Mr. Kiersey, vice president of Irish Road Haulage Association will comment on alternative fuels and related issues.