Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

I welcome Sinn Féin's motion and thank them for taking the lead from Aontú, which raised this issue last May and again on 17 November. The State right now is involved in highway robbery across this country. It is an incredible situation that it is shaking down commuters who are living in commuter hell at the moment right around the State.

Families are hammered with the cost of living and are finding it difficult to pay for cars, to get them fixed and to pay for fuel. Moreover, nearly 50% of the cost of the fuel that they are paying for is actually going to the Government. The Government is collecting more in fuel taxes today than it did before the cost-of-living crisis raised its ugly head. It is an incredible situation that this is taking place and it is no small money for families. Families in my constituency of Meath are often forced to go through three tolls on the way to work and three on the way back. People are paying well over €2,000 to use the tolls in this State. The worst thing about that is that they are spending this money on an annual basis and are still spending three hours a day in traffic and traffic jams, and are being made to pay for the pleasure of that traffic jam through the toll that this Government is using.

The truth of the matter, let us be honest, is that the tolls are a cash cow now in this State. The M50 cost £58 million to build. The PPP company that signed the contract with Pádraig Flynn, who a tribunal found received £8,000 back from the PPP company, made more money in one year than was the cost of building those two bridges. In one year, the company had paid off that entire debt at the time. The State then paid €1.3 billion for those bridges, which were built for £58 million. What is happening is absolutely sickening and the Government is literally milking people on the way to work. It is a tax on work and on commuters and people have no other option in respect of public transport in these areas.

We have been campaigning for a rail line to be built from Navan to Dublin for the past 15 years and one of the reasons it has not been built is because it would take people from the motorway, would reduce the tolls going to the toll company, and the State would have to make up the difference. It is heads we win and tails you lose and this is the deal the Government has created with these toll companies. Right now the Government should end the cost of the M50 toll and help people who are struggling.

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