While the management of Iarnród Éireann is still examining the consequences for its freight operations of the loss of a major customer like IFI, there have been suggestions that loss-making lines in the rail freight section will be withdrawn. The Minister was swift to request that the company take no action until the strategic rail study was published in the new year, but it is clear that the threat remains to a number of rail lines. The company should not have put itself in a position of such reliance in the first place, but, unfortunately, this is not the only example of poor planning in its case.