We should stimulate the rail freight business instead of using the road infrastructure which is under desperate pressure. Statistics prove that a 40-tonne truck will do over a thousand times more damage to a road surface than a private car. At the Lisheen mines, some 45 trucks per day are completing a round journey of 300 kilometres, thus causing more congestion on the roads. Imaginative and commercially-focused decisions are required to encourage increased rail freight usage. Such a decision would have provided valuable ongoing business for Iarnród Éireann at the Lisheen mines, but that opportunity was lost when it was decided to allow the use of road freight instead. In addition, it would also throw a lifeline to the port at a time when most commercial ports are competing for their share of a shrinking market.