Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I am aware of that but this will be away from Dublin altogether. That is the point the Senator made himself as regards what we are doing. Huge challenges are posed in that respect and the only way we can deal with the internal dynamic of Dublin is by what we are doing with public transport. Ultimately, when the latter form of transport is in place one would have to push back car access.

It is interesting to see what they have done in London, although I am not talking about the congestion charge. Almost all private cars have been removed from The Strand, Piccadilly Circus and Leicester Square. The Strand is down to one lane whereas it used to have three in either direction. It is now mainly used for public transport. It is a question of changing people's habits in order to encourage the use of public transport in and around the city centre. Dublin will go like that. The success of the cordon in what it has done for traffic in and around the centre of Dublin gives us encouragement to make the right decisions for the future in that regard.

All the projects are on budget due to very good management all round. There is no question about that and the vast majority of them are now well ahead of schedule. That has come about because we have managed to develop the first pan-European construction industry. It does not exist anywhere else. That model has brought all the skills at all levels and mixed them with the skills that were already here. That is what has changed the dynamic, together with the contracting arrangements. We are the only country in Europe which has major players from Spain, Portugal, France, Germany, Turkey and the UK. All those companies are bidding for projects here. They have Irish elements in them but they are basically pan-European construction companies, which have brought a huge skills momentum here. That, in turn, has had a positive effect on timeframes and budgets when it comes to dealing with all these issues.

I am glad of the response to upgrade high quality dual carriageways to motorways. As I said at the outset, there is no difference between the quality and physical appearance of such routes. The time has come to re-designate the main roads which will have a major positive effect on speed limits and travel times. I know that people complain of travelling at 120 km/h on one road section and then having to reduce speed on a better section of road. They find it hard to understand but it concerns designation. I welcome what Senators have said about the opportunity presented by the Bill in that regard.

Senator McDowell and others have acknowledged that best international practice on delivering barrier-free tolling is about four years. That is the best that has been achieved internationally. As I said earlier, Vancouver which started behind us, will be a full 12 months behind us before delivering it. We will do it in three years. It is a huge challenge and all the best companies in the world bid for it. They were asked if they could do it more quickly and they could not. Three years was the minimum length of time possible. I believe this project will happen and that it will be a credit to the National Roads Authority, NRA, and the companies involved.

It is not possible, as has been suggested, simply to lift the barriers on the M50 as this would create far worse chaos. We and the NRA did examine such a scenario. Senator Ross's simplistic waving of cheques to lift barriers would compound the problem and the misery being experienced by people on the M50 as it would increase the traffic. I travel the M50 every week at peak and off-peak times and the biggest problems lie in the interchanges, especially at peak times. Simply lifting the barriers would achieve little or nothing.

The three combined elements that will change people's lives are barrier-free tolling, a 50% increase in the capacity of the M50 and changing the interchanges to a free-flow set-up, that is, taking all the traffic lights and roundabouts out of the system. When all this is done, there will be a fully functioning M50 which complements the tunnel well and can deal with access from the Naas dual carriageway and many other elements.

I thank Senators for their compliments on Transport 21 and those passed on to me personally. I am well aware of the New Ross bypass as there are two big projects in the south east: the N24 in Senator Mansergh's area, which I have been visited, and the New Ross bypass. People feel impatient about these projects and they must be carried out but we are moving up the list of projects. The national development plan gave us an extra €400 million this year and that will help me get projects moving quickly. I do not understand why people, especially trucking companies, will not use the network when a toll is applied, although experience shows that in a few months they will do so. The figures coming through on Fermoy are close to those expected when the projections were made, and this has been the case everywhere else.

Taxpayers are not funding the buy-out of the M50 and this is a point that is regularly misunderstood, perhaps deliberately. National Toll Roads, NTR, is receiving what it would have received in any case on the M50 and there is nothing new or additional. If I did not agree with the NRA's proposal to remove NTR from the M50, the benefit of increasing capacity by 50%, which will cost €1 billion, would have flowed to NTR. NTR will only receive what it would have had the clock stopped today and it will not benefit from the huge investment that is to come. Those returns will come back to the NRA, effectively on behalf of the taxpayer. The same people who are now criticising me said we should remove NTR from the administration of the M50 as it received a fantastic deal and I agree with the Senators who said this.

Ireland was different in 1987 and people thought those who bid for and built it were mad since they lost a fortune in the first few years. Luckily, things came right for these people, and good luck to them, but it is now time to move on. The real reason for doing what the NRA and I resolved to do in negotiations last year has nothing to do with a forthcoming election. We aim to go ahead with barrier free tolling, remove NTR from the equation and compensate it only what it would have received anyway in a binding contract until 2020. Nobody can change the contract but NTR will not get the advantage of massively increased volumes of traffic on the M50 in coming years. In my view, this project could see a substantial potential saving for taxpayers and road users. I think I have done the right thing as it fits in to a wider agenda.

I thank Senators for their courteousness and the constructive way most people in the House approached the debate.