Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Labour)

The first question I asked was the number of motorists who have been inaccurately charged or fined. Is the Minister saying it is 500 a day? Is that the Minister's information? A report in today's newspapers indicates that approximately 10,000 motorists a day are being inaccurately recorded or pursued for a fine. From the volume of letters and e-mails I get, it appears the situation is chaotic for many motorists. I have an e-mail from an angry motorist who was at home asleep in bed at 6 o'clock when his mother's car was recorded on the M50 and incurred a toll. It is a car he occasionally drives but on that occasion it was parked in the front yard. I have correspondence from many others in the same situation, including somebody who went through with a tag but then got a letter saying he had not paid. He rang the customer care call centre and was told they would get back to him within 48 hours. They did not get back to him. For a significant number of drivers — 200 a day or even 500 a day, which the company is saying to some of the media — that is outrageous.

There is also the ongoing chaos that transport companies and many other firms are having to endure. We hear of companies who have had to put a number of their staff working on problems to do with the M50 toll and nothing else. The cost-benefit of this system would appear to be quite bad for some business in some respects. The barrier should not have been put there in the first place. It should have been lifted, particularly given the dark history of the setting up of the toll.

Has the Minister spoken to Fred Barry and the National Roads Authority about this matter? How many people have been put through such grave inconvenience and are the many horror stories coming to myself and other public representatives and spokespersons not the norm for many people using the system?

Does the Minister understand the sense of injustice people feel that at least 5%, and possibly a much higher number, of the 100,000 users per day will not be able to be fined or charged because they are foreign drivers, due to the difficulty of tracing them? We know that from the penalty points system, where one third of penalty points are issued to foreigners. Is this not a mess and is it not time the Minister called in the NRA representatives and reported in detail to this House on the way the M50 toll is operating?

There is no use hiding behind this nonsense and saying he cannot report on huge elements in a transport portfolio. The same response was given to the last question put by my Fine Gael colleague. It is complete nonsense. The Deputy is the Minister for Transport and he should be able to give us the full details of any major transport development, including this important road for the whole of the central Leinster region.

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