Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

I also thank the truckers for the 50% increase. The reason we built the tunnel was to take vehicles away from residential areas and put them onto the M50. That was the plan 20 years ago. There has been a reduction of 80% in the number of trucks going through and polluting residential areas all over the city and they are now on a road on which €1 billion is being spent for construction. Admittedly, it would have been nice if people had been able to foresee that a successful Government would have had economic growth of 7% for ten years or that the road would have had a significant impact.

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