The Dublin Port Tunnel (Tollán Calafoirt Bhaile Átha Cliath in Irish) is a landlocked road traffic tunnel in Dublin, Ireland (still under construction as of 2004).
Leading from East Point/East Wall , Dublin 3 to Santry , Dublin 9 , the tunnel connects the Dublin Port with the M1 motorway. It is roughly 4.5 km long overall, its fully bored segment being ca. 2 km long, with open face boring machine and cut and cover tunnel segments making up the rest. The tunnel is primarily meant to be used by heavy goods vehicles (HGV) and is thus intended to relieve surface road congestion. The tunnel was apparently necessitated by the lack of space for building a suitable surface relief road — some argue that such attempts would never have reached planning permission.
The tunnel was built by Japanese-British-Irish consortium NMI (Nishimatsu– Mowlem– Irishenco1), in part using a German-designed TBM (tunnel boring machine). Tunnel excavation works were completed and the final boring machine breakthrough ceremony took place on 18 August 2004. Further works continue on the tunnel and it is anticipated to open in spring 2006.
Even before the commencement of tunnel boring works, the tunnel was publicly criticised for being not high enough: Critics argued that it won't be able to accommodate heavy goods vehicles higher than 4.65 metres when it should have been built with an operating height of 5.5 metres in mind, to accommodate virtually all sizes of trucks. Proponents of the current tunnel argue that it was the best deal that could have been got and that it was anticipated to be able to accommodate most heavy vehicles, with only a minor percentage of trucks still having to use the surface road network. Construction went ahead as planned, despite the limitations. However, even at the breakthrough ceremony, Jimmy Quinn of the Irish Road Haulage Association stated that a future generation may look back and say (about the tunnel not being high enough for very high trucks): "Maybe they should have done it when they were building it."
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1 Irishenco is owned by Mowlem. The eponymous long-standing former Irish company ran into bankruptcy and its name and major assets were bought up by Mowlem before Dublin Port Tunnel construction. Today's Irishenco is possibly best described as an Irish-based and staffed, British-owned branch of Mowlem.
