Trevor Sargent
Ceist:135 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources if he will implement a ban on heavy goods vehicles arriving and departing from Dublin Port between 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. [29206/01]
Vol. 544 No. 4
135 Mr. Sargent asked the Minister for the Marine and Natural Resources if he will implement a ban on heavy goods vehicles arriving and departing from Dublin Port between 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. to 7 p.m. [29206/01]
Dublin Port Company as a statutory independent commercial State company under the Harbours Act, 1996, is wholly responsible for the management, control, operation and development of its harbour. While the day to day management of traffic within the port is undertaken by the port company, such responsibility ends once that traffic is beyond the port gate.
The Deputy will be aware that I established a task force earlier this year to advise me on transport logistics in connection with ports, including the opportunity to divert traffic to other less congested ports outside Dublin and the prospects for off peak scheduling of traffic. I also requested the task force to identify cost effective options for the movement of traffic through Dublin. Included among the questions and issues being addressed by the task force, which would impact on traffic from Dublin Port through the city centre, is the potential to transfer non-essential activities, such as fuel storage and empty containers, out of the port to a more peripheral location.