2.2.12 The island of Ireland’s industrial base continues to change and evolve in the light of global trends. The composition of its GDP is also changing; the service sector accounts for a steadily increasing share of output. These changes affect the nature, volume and distribution of freight demand.
In particular in Northern Ireland, the recently improved political situation has the potential to provide a platform to enable similar rapid economic growth to occur to that of Ireland, though the extent to which this growth potential will ultimately be achieved remains to be seen.
It is crucial to ensure that this potential economic growth would not be quickly choked-off by bottlenecks in transport infrastructure.