Mr. Fred Barry:

I will give an explanation in so far as there is one. On the M3, which is being developed and is substantially being paid for by direct payments from the taxpayer - perhaps I should have said this earlier when questions were being asked about the guarantee payments - the primary payments on the M3 are fixed payments. We made fixed payments during construction and are making fixed operational payments. It is a toll road and as a single PPP scheme it was felt it would be better to have two payments of a lower toll such as €1.30 or €1.35 as at present rather than a single higher toll. On the M4 in Kinnegad, the single toll costs as much as the two tolls on the M3. That was done because the M3 road extends towards Kells, which is quite a long distance. One will get quite a few users who are using the northern end but not the southern end and vice versa. That was the thinking in levying two lower toll rates.