Mr. Colmán Ó Raghallaigh:

Deputy Fitzmaurice states Iarnród Éireann is not aggressively marketing its freight business but it is making every effort to work with groups, such as the Irish Exporters Association, the logistics operators and even voluntary groups such as ourselves, and the company is positively disposed towards growing the freight business, as Mr. Cunningham mentioned earlier.

One disadvantage Iarnród Éireann is under which will have to be addressed in the future is that it could reach a point fairly quickly, if the type of business that we see coming down the line comes on stream, where it will be necessary for the State to assist the company in adding to its rolling stock to meet demand. That would be a happy situation. It is one that the State should welcome.

The EPA made a statement two years ago that the recession had helped us meet our 2012 environmental targets but that there was no way that we would meet our 2020 targets. Iarnród Éireann is uniquely positioned through its freight business to help meet those targets on the transport side. There is nothing we can do about the agriculture side because, as the committee will be aware, there are issues peculiar to agriculture that it will take a fair bit of science to resolve.

As far as transport is concerned, the growth of rail freight in Ireland, if we were to develop it aggressively, would bring us very close to meeting the objective in this respect, if Iarnród Éireann were enabled to do so - and it needs to be so enabled - and if Irish exporters and other groups were to play their part, which we know they will. It is worth noting that, as my colleague said, 80% less carbon dioxide is produced when produce is carried by rail rather than by road, along with less than one tenth the amount of carbon monoxide, one twentieth the amount of nitrogen oxide, 9% the amount of fine particulates and 10% the amount of volatile organic compounds. That sounds like gobbledegook, but those are the facts on how rail freight will save money for this country in the future.