Peadar Tóibín (Meath West, Aontú) | Oireachtas source

The Government has given the go-ahead for an increase in the cost of tolls from Saturday next. Transport Infrastructure Ireland has stated that motorists are highly likely to suffer another increase in the cost of tolls within six months. That is absolutely outrageous. The Government is hiking up the cost of tolls during the most serious cost-of-living crisis in living memory. It is involved in highway robbery of citizens who are struggling just to get work.

Commuters are already being hammered with increased prices in respect of cars and repair costs and are also suffering very significantly increased fuel prices due to excise and taxes at the moment. The Government hiked up the excise on petrol and diesel just three weeks ago. Now it plans to fleece commuters again in September and October with further excise increases. Nearly 50% of the cost of a litre of petrol or diesel is now tied up in taxes. According to the reply to a parliamentary question tabled by Aontú, the Government is now taking more in VAT on petrol and diesel than ever before. In the jaws of a cost-of-living crisis, the Government took in €2.3 billion on fuel taxes last year. These costs are a savage imposition on workers. In reality, they are a tax on work. They are a tax on the people who get up early and who keep this country going, Families who are struggling to put food on the table are now struggling to meet the cost of getting to work.

Tolls and fuel taxes are not uncontrolled costs. They are costs that fall within the Government's remit. It is incredible that the Government is actively increasing transportation inflation at the moment. The head of the Irish Road Haulage Association stated that the estimated changes just in the tolls could increase the burden by €500 per year for each truck. Ultimately, this cost is going to be borne by the consumer.

Someone travelling to work from my county of Meath could pass through six tolls on a return journey every day. At present, that person will pay approximately €2,000 a year on tolls. They do not have a rail option because the Government will not fund a rail line for the county. They do not have a direct bus service because the bus services are radial in nature and are notoriously unreliable.

The Government is claiming that tolls are out of its hands, but this is not true. The M50 is owned by the State. It takes in most of the tolls which are taken in on an annual basis. Those tolls are, in effect, a cash cow for the Government. They are a monument to maladministration on the part of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. These tolls have been paid for by the people over and over again. The M50 was built at a cost of €58 million. In the first year of operation, the company involved recouped all of its costs. The M50 was sold to the State for €600 million in 2007. In the first nine years, the Government took in €1.3 billion from tolls on the M50. The Government now has the neck to increase the tolls on the M50 again. I am calling on it to pause, to stop the increase in tolls across the country and to get rid of the M50 toll.

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