Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail)

I do not subscribe to the notion that the deal done with NTR in 1987 or prior to that was a good agreement. It is easy to say with the benefit of hindsight that the deal was a bad agreement, but even at the time it should have been fairly obvious that a period of 30 or 35 years for such an agreement was too long. The agreement should have included a reference to the internal rate of return so that the earlier termination of the contract would have been triggered in the event that the road turned out to be the cash cow that it has become. However, I do not believe that all the fingers should necessarily be pointed at the politicians. The people within the Department who were involved in the negotiations over a protracted period of time should have spotted the need for such a requirement.

I welcome the initiative announced by the Minister, who is to be commended for taking the bull by the horns and terminating the intolerable situation of the M50 toll bridge. I also welcome the Minister's statement to the House that there will be only one tolling area when we move to barrier-free tolls. That statement flies in the face of many of the adverse comments the Opposition has made recently.

On the general issue of tolls, I do not believe we should necessarily have tolls on bypasses. Whereas the toll on the M50 covers a large stretch of motorway that should be tolled, imposing tolls on bypasses such as those in Limerick and Waterford would not be the right direction to go. I have no difficulty with requiring people who use the excellent M1 going north to Dundalk to pay tolls, because no one could be anything other than glad to pay a toll for the opportunity of using that route rather than the previous road. Tolls should apply on motorways between our major centres of population.

There are lessons from this on how we deal with public-private partnerships. I am not convinced that PPPs are the way forward for infrastructure. As an alternative I suggest we should establish semi-State companies which would be in charge of our motorways either prior or subsequent to their construction. If such companies were allowed to borrow, they would be able to secure funding with interest rates of around 3% or 4%. That would cost far less than the returns of between 10% and 12% per annum that are demanded by private consortiums. We need to consider such arrangements as an alternative, or even as a supplement, to the way in which we currently finance our roads programme.