New road haulage figures queried

The Irish Road Haulage Association has questioned new figures which claim the State's haulage business grew by more then 220 per cent in the last 10 years.

The figures, released yesterday by the Central Statistics Office (CSO), claim the weight of goods carried on Irish roads had risen from 80,761 tonnes to almost 260,000 tonnes between 1993 and 2003. The figures also claim the number of Irish registered lorries on the State's roads rose from 30,669 to more than 81,000 in 2003.

The haulage association, which represents the majority of the State's hauliers, said 75 per cent of its members were one-lorry concerns.

A spokesman said that for the level of goods carried to have risen so substantially in the last 10 years, each member would need to have had "four or five lorries".

According to spokesman Mr Jimmy Quinn, the gap is too wide to be explained simply in terms of larger lorries, although he pointed out that the trend in Britain was for larger lorries which offered economies of scale.

Mr Quinn said the rise was "phenomenal" and on an initial reaction he did not see how the additional commercial activity the hauliers had noted over the past decade could be a much as the statistics suggested.

However, he said he accepted that the CSO was "not in the business of putting out false information". His association would consider the figures over the coming days.

The figures also showed that a significant 29 per cent of all vehicles were 10 or more years old and carried about 15 per cent of the total weight of goods transported.

The vast majority of Irish haulage business is still with the UK, according to the figures, which reveal that 89.5 per cent of the goods exported from the Republic in Irish-registered lorries was destined for the UK.

The next highest destination country was France, at just 2.9 per cent, followed by Germany at 2.2 per cent.

Inwards goods came mostly from the UK, with the figures indicating that 91.6 per cent of all goods brought into the Republic in Irish-registered trucks came from or through there.

The volume of business with the UK has led to the PD transport spokesman, Senator Tom Morrissey, calling for the 4.6-metre height restriction in the Dublin Port Tunnel to be scrapped. Insisting that the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, was about to cap the height of "super cube" trucks at 4.65 metres, Senator Morrissey said the move was "nonsensical and costly".

"It will threaten jobs and damage our economy's competitiveness. This plan is farcical."