Regina Doherty (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses. I particularly thank Mr. Walsh for his lengthy statement and his remarks so far.

It is not that I am naive, but I am going to tease this out because an awful lot of normal people outside of this room would be under the impression that when a public private partnership is arranged, the cost of the contract is determined on the basis of the construction costs, which would be shared between both, the length of the road, future maintenance, etc.. I will use the M50 as an example. Are we still paying construction costs to the private element of the organisation that built or paid for half the road? If so, how long will we be paying for it? There was a view among people when tolls came in that they were there to pay for the private part of the road and that when the road was paid for, they would be reduced drastically. This was seen as the benefit of us using this kind of engagement. What Mr. Walsh suggests this morning is that there will be no end to the tolls. He also suggests that the CPI part of it is contractual, which is incredible when we think about the fact that most of the charges to people are index-linked but most of the payments to people are absolutely not index-linked. There is a bit of a dichotomy in that regard.

I digress somewhat. I am asking specifically about the likes of the M50. How much are we still paying of the contractor's costs for the building the latter? How much of the 1% and the 6% proposed increased fees will go towards increased wages? There cannot be 250 people on the M50. I suggest it is probably less than 40 or 50 people manning the road. How much of the percentage of that project is going towards the maintenance and development of the rest of our network? With regard to the overall tolled roads in the country, how much of the income is going towards the TII budget annually to maintain, grow and develop our network for the rest of the region?