Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The contracts for the privately-operated toll schemes are commercial agreements between the National Roads Authority, NRA, which has statutory responsibility in this area, and the public-private partnership concessionaires concerned.  The M3 and Limerick tunnel schemes commenced operations in 2010. The NRA has provided me with details of the traffic guarantee payments payable per year since and I will provide these in a table below. The proposed traffic guarantee provisions were the subject of a State aid notification in 2006 and the EU Commission decision on the notification was to consider the aid to be compatible with the European treaties.

As regards the position in Portugal, I understand there were specific conditions relating to the scale of the public private partnership programme and the nature of the contracts that resulted in the renegotiation of contracts.  As the Deputy will appreciate there is a contract in place between the State, in this case represented by the NRA, and the two public-private partnership companies. This contract cannot be unilaterally changed by either party and can only be done by agreement.

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