Ms Isolde Goggin:

It could have been dealt with if people had come to us and said that it was a problem, but they did not.

There was a question about goods transported by road that could be transported by rail. This arose only indirectly in the sense that people would explain that there was rail freight option into a given port and not into another. However, the major point emerging was the magnet effect that larger ports seem to have. They seem to draw more and more traffic in once they hit a certain critical mass. Then, the frequency of service increases and that makes it more attractive again.

There is an issue around climate change and the relative carbon cost of various forms of transport and so on, but dealing with environmental matters is far beyond our level of expertise. Another area that could be examined relates to the point raised by Deputy Harrington earlier about sea freight versus air freight. Exporters tend to fall into using one or other category, either air freight or sea freight, by the nature of the goods in question and the value-to-volume ratio. If goods are small, light and high-value, they can go by air and everything else tends to go by sea.

Are we satisfied with the level of competition? The is the short answer is "No, we are not". We believe a good deal more could be done. We would prefer to wait until we see the response of the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. The Department said it would get back to us in six months. We will have a good look at what Dublin Port Company came out with last week on its franchise review. We will talk to the Department and come back in a further six months and then decide whether more needs to be done. We have put it up to people. We have outlined what we believe the issues are and what we believe is within the power of parties to change. We would like to see how that goes and whether that meets our concerns.