Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

The concern at the time was that we would not get sufficient flows of traffic to justify the road. There is an agreement in place. It is simple for Deputy Higgins to suggest scrapping it but there is an agreement until 2020. Satisfactory arrangements between the NRA and NTR cannot be reached. For that reason the NRA says it will take control of the situation but it must honour the agreement with NTR. It has been suggested even when the NRA is taken out of the equation and electronic tolling is introduced, with the upgrade of the work that will go on until 2010 costing €1 billion, NTR will have to be paid €45 million per year. NTR disputes that figure, saying it should be far higher. That is an issue the NRA and NTR will have to sort out in due course but it must be done in an ordered way.

There is a contractual agreement and the NRA is now saying it cannot reach an agreement with NTR and is now taking it out of the equation. It will move the plaza and tender for a replacement arrangement that will introduce free flow electronic tolling on the M50. It will carry out a traffic study between now and the end of the year, get on with the upgrade, which started with phase one yesterday, and we will see if the new operator the NRA will bring in will help the position.

Deputy Joe Higgins knows well that removing the plaza and introducing electronic free flow is not the only resolution, there are the other changes. When it was built they were talking about 700,000 registered cars in the State and we are now talking about 2.1 million. The population has increased by 1 million in 15 years. That must be taken into account. The removal of the plaza and free flow electronic tolling will not resolve that. Already there are plans looking beyond that to the orbital route and other issues. We must complete the Naas Road, which is now well advanced and ahead of schedule. We must deal with the tunnel opening, the extension of the M50 and the compensation of NTR under the arrangements for removing it from the equation. These issues have been set out.

In response to the issue raised by Deputy Rabbitte, a fair question about what happens on the locations of the tolling in future, that decision cannot be made until the comprehensive report is presented in the autumn.

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