Mr. Peter Scallan:

I thank Deputy Seán Kenny for his comments. My company is based in Wexford and employs 430 staff in Ballinasloe, Carlow, Dublin and Cork, but the majority are in Wexford. We are a rurally based company in an area with employment difficulties. We have been employing people there for nearly 90 years and we hope to continue to do so. It is increasingly difficult to be an employer in rural areas when one sees regulations such as this that tend to favour those operating in a city, where there is a natural infrastructure of motorways. Many of our goods travel across the country. Regulations that were brought in because of the Dublin Port tunnel are affecting our ability to transfer goods from the south east to the north west.

In our 17 years of operating double-deck vehicles, we have never had a bridge strike. Having spoken to the operators of the bridges, including Irish Rail, I am aware that bridge strikes arise almost exclusively from construction machinery that is not properly loaded or ad hoc loads. They do not arise from double-deck trailers or high cube trailers such as those operated by my company. Our routes are run like bus routes. It is the same route every day. There are only three routes: Wexford to Ballinasloe, Wexford to Cork, and Wexford to Tallaght. For all of those, national primary routes are used, with many of our vehicles travelling at night, and the loads are then broken down into smaller distributions. Because of the Dublin Port tunnel, however, we can no longer ship our goods under these efficient systems. We will increase our carbon footprint by 40%, we will increase our emissions by 40% and we will increase our road footprint by slightly more. With return trips, those living in Enniscorthy must put up with our trucks making 4,000 crossings of Enniscorthy bridge every year. Because of the restriction of 4.65 m, those 4,000 crossings will increase to 6,500.