Mr. Tom Wilson:

If I may respond, the FTAI has been in dialogue with the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport and in particular with its Minister, Deputy Varadkar for the past three years in the knowledge that this regulation, SI 366 of 2008, was coming through on 1 November 2013. We explained to the Minister the huge impact this would have on trade in Ireland, the possibility of companies relocating into the North of Ireland, as well as other factors, some of which already have been mentioned already. Basically, the Minister asked why were we were talking about this. Our response was that in 2008 or whenever this law was created, things were good. We then went into a period of severe austerity and those people were obliged to do things more efficiently, more cleverly and more economically and we still are in that position today. We still are recovering from the downturn in the economy and consequently, we stated the appropriate solution for this was that these vehicles would only travel on primary routes from the port or from the North down, using the motorway network on which, as members have heard, the bridge clearance is 5.3 m.

In addition, as an Irish solution to this problem, we suggested the Minister would allow these vehicles to continue to operate under a special permit scheme that was quite different to the existing abnormal loads permit scheme, which is completely unsuited for this solution. The point is that in allowing this to happen, we would continue to recover from the economic position, would continue to save jobs in Ireland and most certainly would help to keep our carbon footprint low. We must be mindful of the fact that come 2020, every European country, including Ireland, must reduce its carbon footprint by approximately 80% and if one considers the most recent air quality figures for the greater Dublin area, we are very close to having infraction proceedings placed on us. Were we to proceed with this measure that restricts the 20% of vehicular movements that at present are undertaken in vehicles of more than 4.64 m, we would be worsening the air quality for all those people in north Dublin. We very much hope the Minister will agree to allow these vehicles to continue under a special permit arrangement.