News and Star
Friday November 16th 2001
By Aileen Mulhall
TOLLING of the City’s second bridge over the River Suir would place a “substantial financial burden” on about 600 workers of Waterford City’s biggest employer — Bausch & Lomb. And the oral hearing was warned that a toll on the second river crossing would make Bausch & Lomb less competitive because of increased charges that would be passed on to the company for transporting raw materials and exporting finished product by road.
That’s the message Ber Fitzgerald, of the Bausch & Lomb Partnership Forum, which represents 1700 employees at the Waterford Industrial Parkbased company, gave to the oral hearing into the Draft Toll Scheme. Mr. Fitzgerald, in his oral submission, said he believed the 600 Bausch & Lomb workers from Wexford, Kilkenny and Tipperary would use the existing untolled road rather than pay a toll fee to travel to work via the second river crossing. Crossing the new bridge to get to the Cork Road up to 10 times per week would place a substantial financial burden on them, he said
He said Bausch & Lomb had been told by the haulage firms doing freight transport work for the company that they would have to increase freight charges because of a toll on the second river crossing. This was a cost that Bausch & Lomb would have to bear. “Any rise in costs to the company will work against us, making us less competitive,” he said. Like others, who addressed the public inquiry, Mr. Fitzgerald pointed out that there was no tolling of bypasses in other parts of the country such as Cork, Limerick and Galway. He warned that tolling the Waterford Bypass would maintain the level of traffic using the old route and result in heavy traffic continuing to roll into the city, preventing the development of The Quay and a decent standard of living in the city centre and suburbs.
Mr. Fitzgerald also pointed out that the IDA had clearly stated that the improvement of access to Waterford, including the upgrading the road network and Waterford Airport, were critical requirements for attracting foreign industry into the City “If we are to get infrastructural improvements we have to pay for them, but the IDA is turning around and saying that they are a necessity and we have to have them,” he told the public inquiry.
The Bausch & Lomb Partnership Forum’s written submission also raised this issue. It expressed concern that the tolling of the second river crossing would be used against the region when it was vying for foreign investment.
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