Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

If he does, he will not, as part of Government, be endorsing the Irish Maritime Development Office, IMDO, report or review that was carried out for the Department of Transport. Given my 30 years in logistics management and my experience, let me explain what logistics management means. It is the part of the supply chain that plans, controls and implements the efficient and effective flow of goods and services from the point of origin to the point of consumption to meet the customer's requirements. That is not contained within the IMDO document. It is called the Irish Maritime Development Office but there is no development within this review - none. What we are doing is trying to replace an efficient and effective route, the landbridge, which currently takes 13.5 hours for the 150,000 freight movements per year. The IMDO did not feel the need to talk to the people who operate the trucks, the Irish Road Haulage Association, which had no part in this review. Yet, the office of the Minister for Transport can release a press statement, headlined: “Sufficient capacity on existing continental services to accommodate displaced landbridge traffic”. Nothing changes. We seemingly have capacity just sitting there, waiting for Brexit to happen.

I have been in the Dáil for nine months and not one word I have said has been listened to - not one. There is no solution in this report for the landbridge traffic. It is an utter disgrace that the people who are operating logistics management in this country were not even consulted. What it actually says is that, as an alternative to the 13.5 hours movement, we should use container ships that do not take trucks or drivers and that travel for 38 hours. It is not efficient and effective.

It is the worst solution I have ever seen. The Taoiseach, in his opening remarks in reply to Deputy McDonald, said that the Government is in the business of protecting jobs and businesses. That report does not do that for this country. It is beyond belief for me to sit here after nine months and have to read that and, worse still, to have it presented by the Department of Transport to my constituency colleagues who know something but certainly not as much as I do about transport. I am gravely concerned.

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