Mr. Jerry Kiersey:

The issue is that Siim Kallas, the Transport Commissioner, sought to bring in a system, which has existed in the Nordic countries for the past 15 or 20 years, into the whole of Europe. The Dutch supported it and the Benelux countries, in general, supported it. However, he provoked Members of the European Parliament into total opposition to it because he had not followed due process, as they saw it. According to them, he bypassed the Parliament. The consequence of that is that a committee has come together and its rapporteur, Jörge Leichtfried, an Austrian, has sought now, because of Commissioner Kallas's mistake, to roll the whole process back. For instance, the Nordic countries have had an agreement for 15 years or more whereby these lorries can move between those states but Jörge Leichtfried is proposing it is illegal for states, irrespective of whether they have bilateral agreements in place, to allow certain trucks that exceed the European norms to cross borders, and that will affect Ireland, North and South. The driver of a lorry transporting cattle, as in the example given by Mr. Eoin Gavin, travelling from, say, Wexford to Belfast will have to stop at the Border where we have no border crossing. That is the outcome of what Jörge Leichtfried is proposing. He is seeing this proposal entirely through Austrian eyes rather than from the perspective of the whole of Europe. There are islands in Europe but he does not seem to acknowledge that fact.