Dublin City Council plans a 12-hour daytime ban on heavy goods vehicles (HGVs) in the city centre area between the Royal and Grand canals when the Dublin Port Tunnel opens next year, it has emerged.
The ban, contained in the city's Draft HGV Management Strategy, will apply to all HGVs of five axles and over - some 65 per cent of lorries using Dublin Port.
It will apply equally to HGVs making city centre deliveries and to those crossing the city between Dublin Port and regional routes.
The strategy also plans to reduce the size of lorry to which the ban will apply, to include four- axle vehicles "after a period of three to five years".
A limited number of exemptions are proposed for some industries already in the city such as Guinness Brewery, and construction sites where cement lorries must have access, and oil tankers.
But permits will be restricted and will depend on industry proposals to reduce vehicles operating within the exclusion area.
Criticising the plan the Irish Road Haulage Association said it would lead to "the strangulation of commercial life of the city", forcing lorries which arrive at Dublin Port on or after 7am to wait up to 12 hours before entering the city centre. This would affect fresh food and flowers as well as other deliveries and force shoppers to choose "edge city" locations such as Blanchardstown, Liffey Valley and Dundrum, which could be serviced first.
Hauliers also said the ban would require lorries to use the M50 for the south and east, forcing them to pay an additional €29 million annually in road tolls and adding 7,000 lorries a day to the already congested West-Link.
They maintained that transferring produce to smaller vehicles from an out-of-town distribution centre would not solve congestion problems as it would simply swap one vehicle for several vehicles with more adverse environmental consequences.
They want a "window" for day deliveries and a Government rebate on toll charges which they claim could be funded by duty on extra fuel for longer trips.
Fine Gael transport spokeswoman Olivia Mitchell has criticised the plan, describing it as "draconian" in scale and likely to make Dublin city centre "a very difficult place in which to trade or live".
Ms Mitchell said she was also worried that if HGVs were banned from daytime business within the canal cordon, then they would concentrate their efforts on suburban areas between the canals and the M50.
But Owen Keegan, Dublin city director of traffic, expressed impatience with the hauliers' case. He maintained the plan had the "overwhelming support" of resident groups and elected members of the city council. While Mr Keegan appreciated that hauliers had issues on tolls, he said the city should not be organised to facilitate large lorries.
