Tolls 'too expensive for HGVs', council hears

A call to the National Roads Authority (NRA) to enter negotiations with the Irish Road Haulage Association about the toll fees being charged on the new motorways was made at a meeting of Meath County Council. The Kells area members of the council - Cllrs Eugene Cassidy, John Farrelly, Catherine Yore, Oliver Fox and Bryan Reilly - tabled the motion. Cllr John Farrelly said there was no question but that some of the biggest hauliers had "done their sums" about the differences in travelling on the M3 motorway and the alternative route and they had come to the conclusion that it was cheaper to go by the alternative route. He said it was important to get the two sides - the NRA and the hauliers - together to start the process of getting HGVs onto the motorway. Cllr Fox said he supported the motion. The area he represented had large indigenous industries using heavy vehicles. Cllr Sirena Campbell said the residents of Julianstown had been fighting strenuously to have heavy vehicles removed from their village and onto the M1 motorway. She warned that the opening of the Indaver incinerator at Carranstown, Duleek, had the potential to put even more heavy vehicles through Julianstown. Cllr Cassidy said that one company he knew had said that the route from Kells through Navan to Dublin was the cheapest route. "This is a problem that needs to be addressed," he said.