Park plan threat hits Irish drivers
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by Patric Cunnane • Up to 700 Irish lorry drivers could lose their jobs if plans for a massive freight park near Dublin go ahead, warns the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA).
The National Distribution Park will be based in Clondalkin in the city's south-west suburbs with a direct rail link to the port of Dublin. Containers will come to Clondalkin by road and train for subsequent transhipment by rail to the dockside.
City planners estimate it will remove 1,500 LAW movements a day from Dublin's streets. But outgoing IRHA president Jimmy Quinn says that hauliers were not consulted about the scheme, even though their jobs will be most at risk. He claims that local hauliers moving two to three containers a day will lose work and warns that the scheme will also threaten the success of the proposed Dublin Port Tunnel which will remove commercial traffic from the city's streets while allowing lorries from all over Ireland unimpeded access to the ports.
"The freight park, funded by state-owned rail operator larnrod Eireann, is a direct attack on our jobs using Government subsidies," Quinn told the IRHA's annual conference, held in Ennis, Co Clare over Easter. "Clondalkin will increase transport costs because containers will have to be handled up to three times before going on ships."
But the proposed development is not without its supporters. Joe Jones, assistant chief executive of Dublin Port, says the freight park will help with increased port access, but he stresses that it should not be seen as a substitute for the Dublin Port Tunnel.