Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

It is an appalling waste of money. I appreciate that TII did not initiate the legal process but it has been extremely expensive as TII is paying over €500,000 in legal costs. It is an appalling vista and is absolutely unacceptable. Following today's meeting we will need to invite TII here again to discuss its annual report and other issues such as that TII seems to penalise compliant motorists by overcharging them, certainly in Drogheda, but it has not collected €10 million in uncollected tolls from non-compliant motorists. That is a matter of great concern.

I would also like TII to address the question of value added tax, VAT, for non-commercial vehicles. I appreciate today may not necessarily be the day to go into this in detail but it is estimated that over €100 million is owed to private motorists in VAT refunds which they have not received. What is TII's position on that? In the public perception tolling, and this is part of it, is a waste of public funds. The compliant people are not getting value for money and those who break the law are enjoying it. It is not acceptable.