Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail)

I move amendment No. 1:

To delete all words after "Seanad Éireann" and substitute the following:

—welcomes the Government's commitment to, and the increased investment in, the upgrade of the transport infrastructure in the greater Dublin area;

—welcomes the Government's commitment to the upgrade of the M50 including the installation of barrier-free tolling and notes that work will commence shortly on phase 1 of the upgrade;

—notes the decision of the NRA to terminate negotiations with NTR regarding the West Link;

—welcomes the comprehensive traffic study of the M50 which the NRA will now carry out;

—notes that, following completion of this study, the NRA will submit specific proposals for the free flow tolling of the M50 for approval by the Government;

—notes that the Department of Transport is engaged with all the stakeholders, including Dublin City Council, the National Roads Authority and the Dublin Port Company to ensure that these agencies develop a co-ordinated traffic management strategy for the opening of the Dublin Port tunnel; and

—welcomes the contribution that the toll-based roads PPP programme is making to the implementation of the national roads development programme including through the early delivery of vital road infrastructure.

I welcome the Minister to the House and the opportunity to discuss this important issue. I have only eight minutes but it would take considerably longer to refute some of the negativity and misrepresentation of the facts we have heard. We had a similar discussion here on 23 March 2005 on a motion tabled by Senator Ross. The big issue in the media and in the public mind at the time was the removal of the bottleneck at the West Link toll plaza because of the difficulties people experienced sitting for considerable time on the approaches to the bridges morning and evening. At no time during that debate did I hear anything about the cost of the toll. The problem, as perceived by me and by most people, was that people were paying for a poor service that was not in keeping with best practice and was downright inefficient.

There has been significant improvement since then. The Minister has held discussions that were difficult and protracted, for obvious reasons. A private operator has a contract and I differ from the other side on the origins of that. The decision has now been taken to remove the toll plaza. I am not happy that it will be 2008 — like most people I would like it to be sooner — but there are difficult issues that need to be resolved. Until this problem surfaced there was no problem with the principle of tolling on the bridge or the M50. I have heard suggestions for barrier-free tolling at multiple points but a review is ongoing and a decision must be made on how such money can be collected.

The debate has now changed. A solution has been found to the removal of the blockade at the bridge and the Minister has made the correct decision. The NRA had progressed as far as it could with its negotiations with NTR and he could not allow the negotiations to continue so pulled the plug in line with the clause in the contract.

I listened with interest to Senator Paddy Burke's revisionist view of how the contract with NTR came about. We only have to go back to 1987 because most of the negotiations took place between 1982 and 1987, involving the coalition Government at the time. I do not seek to apportion blame to the Government at the time or to the subsequent Government but we lived in a very different society and projections were that 25,000 vehicles would utilise that road in 2005. That has quadrupled, so that there were nearly 100,000 last year.

I could play politics and say the reason so many cars cross the West Link toll bridge in 2005 is that Fianna Fáil-led Governments since 1987 have changed the economic fortunes of this country. There would be a large element of truth in that——