Paula Butterly (Louth, Fine Gael)

I am not a member of the transport committee but when I heard the witnesses would be in this morning, I could not pass up the opportunity. I thank the Chair for allowing me to speak at the end.

I am going to get the witnesses to rehash some of the points that were probably raised this morning. What are the three top issue in terms of costs and barriers in their industry? I have a little but not much knowledge about the haulage industry. I imagine that the industry will be facing huge challenges for anything that is intercontinental.

Yesterday we heard great news about the Slane bypass, but that causes me a lot of concern because Ardee still awaits its bypass. As a child I would walk through Ardee with my grandfather and he would say Ardee needs a bypass. That was not today or yesterday. To my mind, we will have the Slane bypass and this will exacerbate traffic problems in and around Ardee. I would like to hear the views of the witnesses on that.

I am fascinated by the transition year programme suggested by Mr. Hyland. He is absolutely right. My son is about to go into transition year and I believe his school will give him some sort of battery-operated vehicle to drive around a basketball court, which will be his introduction to driving. Thankfully, I live on a farm so he is well used to driving around the fields and so will have a little bit of a head start on others. It does me concern me when young people are going out driving for the first time that they have no real knowledge of the roads and driving. That ties in to what was said about drivers coming into the haulage business and not being well enough equipped. Lorries are very big and expensive and could cause serious damage in any impact, and the industry is bearing the cost of that, if I am right. Will the witnesses give me an estimate of what that cost would actually be?