Mr. Eugene Drennan:

I welcome the Deputy and I thank her for calling in. She has more of an idea from her previous life of international and truck haulage than most people in the House, I would say, and understands the problem of international haulage. I have been talking about Holyhead and connectivity, especially in the light of the recent withdrawal of a service by Stena Line, which I am sure is of interest to the Deputy and her constituency. Unless we retain connectivity through the land bridge and simplify the procedures, which I have gone into here and that will be on record, then we are in trouble at different times of the year. We need the connectivity and the streamlining, as it exists, through that and onward to Italy. It is a long road to Italy and down to the toe of Italy if we have fresh produce or even short-dated produce. As I have said in one of my statements, there is no point in Enterprise Ireland selling farming and telling international industries all the reasons they should come to Ireland if we cannot maintain the supply chain to them and get the product out. We are going to be second grade very fast.

As regards the Ardee bypass and Slane, it is the nature of things in Ireland that things move step by step. It is a painful experience going through it all. We seem to create the problem before we solve it. I think Ardee will have a bit of a problem for a while but I am sure the Deputy will be vocal enough and apply pressure. We definitely need the bypass.