Brian Hayes (Fine Gael)

If it is rubbish the Minister will put it on the record of the House rather than muttering from the other side. If it is true it amounts to another breach of faith on the part of NTR, as well as another way in which the Minister failed to act on information when it first came to hand.

The situation in 12 months' time will certainly be much worse than now. There will be at least another 10,000 cars on the M50 and, as Senator Burke said, the Dublin Port tunnel will spew out 2,500 to 3,000 articulated lorries onto the M50 on a daily basis. However, the Government tells us the solution to this problem will emerge in 2008. The constituents I represent want to know what will happen today.

Some solutions can be advanced. The Minister has never once attempted to negotiate with NTR to take away the barriers at peak times, in line with an amendment on the Order Paper to which Senator Ross and Senator O'Toole referred. Never once has he demanded that the company remove the barrier at peak times in the morning and evening, even for one week. I suggested to the Minister more than five months ago, when the House last debated the issue, that the service provider should be obliged to raise the barriers when a substantial queue built up at the toll plaza so that motorists could immediately flow through. There are no contraflows on the most problematic junctions, between the N7 and the N4. Gardaí could be deployed at certain junctions in the morning to create two lanes onto the M50 as well as two lanes leading off in the evening.

These measures could make some difference now, unlike his actual proposal. The Minister's big idea is for the people who live in west and south-west Dublin, of which I am one, and along the entire fringe of the M50, to buy out the National Toll Roads contract for the toll plaza. He is going back to the future. When the initial proposal was made to Dublin County Council over 20 years ago it was for gantries onto the M50 and there were protests in Clondalkin, Tallaght and Blanchardstown because people realised they would be taxed every time they went onto the M50, thus subsidising the buyout of the horrendous deal entered into by his party on two occasions, in 1987 and 2001. That will not be allowed to happen because people will not accept it and will stand up to it. He has created the problem and it is futile to blame other people.