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

I am not arguing with the Deputy's implication that this was a bad deal. In fairness to the previous Administration, most people at the time believed the economy would continue to grow and very few predicted the scale of collapse that occurred. I can review the contracts but when we did so before, they were solid and had EU approval with respect to State aid. It is very difficult to see a basis for renegotiation on a legal technicality or similar grounds.

With regard to the Limerick tunnel, there was a toll holiday last November which resulted in a 20% increase in the number of trucks going through toll plazas but the increase was 70% in Limerick. The heavy goods vehicles are going through Limerick to avoid that toll.

Ironically, one way to reduce the traffic guaranteed payments would be paying the tolls and making it toll-free for HGVs to use the Limerick tunnel. Even though the Government would then have to pay the tolls the trucks would have paid to the company the fact more trucks would be going through would reduce the traffic guarantee. This is one option we are considering.

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