Mr. Jerry Kiersey:

In regard to the question on out-of-State hauliers, Northern Ireland and the United Kingdom are our biggest trading partners on the land Border. There will be no enforcement in respect of Northern Ireland hauliers, who will continue to bring their trailers into this jurisdiction. They have hundreds of such trailers. The position with regard to UK traffic will be slightly different as a result of the height restriction relating to the Dublin Port tunnel. Trailers that are over the height will be obvious because they will not be able to drive through the tunnel. The transport committee of InterTradeIreland - an organisation established on foot of the Good Friday Agreement - produced a report in 2005 which recommended that there be no height restriction other than that which existed in the Republic of Ireland at the time. In other words, it stated that the restriction here should match that which obtains in Northern Ireland.

Without that, it was going to damage the competitive position of the whole of Ireland, North and South, not only the Republic of Ireland.

However, be that as it may, the port tunnel project went ahead and the we ended up with a height limit 4.65 m and we live with the consequences of that. Our motorway system was built with the same height limit that applies to the British system, which is 5.35 m. Therefore, lorries have never hit bridges on the motorway system. As a haulier I have never hit a bridge. The people who have hit bridges tend to be those carrying cranes and other high machinery on the back of lorries. Those bridges were all built before the invention of the internal combustion engine. None of those bridges is to be found on the motorways. Bridges on the motorway system do not get hit by these high cube trucks and, if they did, they would be in pieces. People do not hit bridges as a matter of course. I do not know if that fully answers the Deputy's question.