T4 Opens at Dublin Port today

Regardless of his motives Crosbie's (hardly new) suggestion of using railfreight to reach a truck terminal in the Midlands is a valid one. Too many truck come in through Dublin.

Its not a valid one. It reflects very little knowledge of the type of goods being transferred, by what means, their origin-destination, and the costs involved. It also reflects little to no knowledge of rail capacity in the Greater Dublin Area.

The idea that we take a container off a boat, put it onto a train, transfer it to Portlaoise, and then for the majority of goods drive them back up the N7 to the rest of the GDA is ridiculous. Hard to know if the emissions are better or worse , my guess is worse due to extra distances involved. The costs definitely go up due to extra handling.

Irish Rail's own rail freight strategy still has very little % of goods being transferred by rail freight and that's highly ambitious given the challenges involved and market interest.

And alot of Dublin Port Land isn't easily developed. The Port would still function to facilitate the rail freight connection. There's lots of high risk Seveso Sites which limit development or face massive costs for decommissioning, areas of contanimated lands, high risk infrastructure like major aviation fuel and power lines and so on.

We've an abundance of land inside the Canal Cordon and M50 that is much more easily developed for housing.