The Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA) has called on the Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, to revoke his proposed ban on "supertrucks" entering Dublin city centre or else raise the clearance height of the Dublin Port Tunnel.
It warned yesterday that the ban, combined with the tunnel height restriction of 4.65 metres, would reduce the competitiveness of Irish products, raise the cost of goods for Irish consumers and increase pollution and traffic congestion.
Mr Jimmy Quinn, the IRHA's spokesman, said it was "ludicrous" to ban high-volume "super-cube" trucks, which are on average 30 centimetres bigger than existing trailers.
"For the Minister to ban them from Dublin Port makes no sense," he said. "England is our biggest land-trading partner and you can drive a "super-cube" from Galway to John O'Groats and the only obstruction will be the Dublin Port Tunnel and Dublin city centre."
He said the tunnel would serve as the main link between the Irish and British road networks, where the operational clearance height is 5.05 metres - 40 centimetres more than would be allowed in the €625 million tunnel which is currently under construction.
"By reducing carbon-dioxide emissions, "super-cube" vehicles are better for the environment," Mr Quinn said, adding that their growing use would help to reduce total truck movements in line with an EU policy to improve the environmental efficiency of road transport.
At a press briefing yesterday, the IRHA said every motorway overbridge constructed in Ireland or Britain over the past 30 years has had a clearance height of at least five metres, and the same was true of freight ships operating out of Dublin Port.
The most struck bridge in Ireland, the East Wall Road bridge, has just been raised from 4.65 metres to 5.3 metres.
"The Dublin Port Tunnel has a projected life of 100 years. We should be looking forward to the future, not to the past. This is a national issue, not a Dublin one."
It said the four major ferry operators in Dublin Port had estimated that the number of "super-cube" trucks in everyday use constitutes between 5 per cent and 10 per cent of daily shippings. The taller trucks were increasingly used for the delivery of lightweight products because they are capable of carrying 50 per cent more goods than standard trucks.
It said there were significant economic benefits from "super-cube" trucks. In Britain, studies had shown that they could save British manufacturers £340 million per annum. "Savings to Irish industry would be of proportional levels."
More extensive use of "super-cube" trucks in Britain had also cut the number of heavy goods vehicles in use from 593,000 in 1967 to 422,00 in 2001.
