Mr. Simon McKeever:

I will try to answer some of the Deputy's questions before asking Mr. Daly to respond to the very first question which was related to multi-mode routing.

The Deputy asked whether some of the proceeds of the sale of AIB should be used to develop the infrastructure needed in the context of Brexit. We have tried to portray that what we have will not really meet the needs associated with where our exporters need to go. They need to go further afield. It would be great if some of the moneys from the sale of AIB could be diverted towards capital spending.

I do not want to go into massive detail on the ownership structure of Rosslare Europort, other than to say the duality there poses a number of challenges in further development. Waterford and Rosslare are probably the two ports that could be used to open further direct routes to continental Europe.

We have talked to our members about the challenges they will face if the land bridge is not to be utilised going forward and a number of them are looking at alternative routes. Approximately 57% of them have said that they could use alternative routes but in certain industries where time is of the essence, particularly the food and drink industry, the options are more limited. It has been estimated that routing goods to the Continent via northern or eastern European routes rather than via the land bridge can add up to eight hours onto transit times. In terms of sell by and use by dates, that could have serious implications. It might not make a big difference to traffic that is going into southern Europe.

It has been well documented that the infrastructure in the west of Ireland is a nightmare. Recently we held an event at the airport at Knock. Once one reaches Mullingar, one is on a single lane highway, if even that, all the way to Knock.