Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Keating. Coming back to the use of rail for the carriage of freight, my understanding is from speaking to somebody recently who told me he had expertise in these matters, but who can know, that one of the issues was that a great deal of the containers that come into Ireland are widely distributed. Containers come in off a ship, and if we were to put them on a train, it would not be like other jurisdictions where there are three or four big cities in a country. We have one big city in the country. If we were to send the containers by rail, at least half or three-quarters of that freight would end up going on a truck and travelling as much as if it had been sent on trucks in the first place. That goes back to the earlier point. Having said that, is there the opportunity to use freight or look at contexts where there are larger volumes of similar product going to a particular destination? The issue was mentioned about Tara Mines with all the zinc ore, which is a large volume of a single product. Is that the reason we do not have as much rail freight in Ireland? What is the reason?