John Perry (Sligo-North Leitrim, Fine Gael)

I thank the Senator for raising this very important issue and congratulate him on his election to the Seanad. I offer apologies from my colleague, the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, for his inability to make this Adjournment debate. He is currently travelling between Luxembourg where he was attending a meeting of the European Union Transport Ministers and Frankfurt where is due to attend a number of Tourism Ireland promotional events.

In the first instance, I would like to clarify that the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport has responsibility for overall policy and funding in regard to the national roads programme. The statutory power to levy tolls on national roads, to make toll by-laws and to enter into toll agreements with private investors in respect of national roads, is vested in the NRA under Part V of the Roads Act 1993, as amended by the Planning and Development Act 2000 and the Roads Act 2007.

To date the main emphasis of tolling policy has been on toll-based public private partnerships, PPPs, for national roads, with tolls being used as part remuneration for private investment. In addition, public tolls are levied on the M50 and Dublin Port tunnel with all revenues being reinvested in the national road network.

Currently there are ten toll schemes in operation on national roads in Ireland. The contracts for the privately-operated toll schemes are commercial agreements between the NRA and the PPP concessionaires concerned. Under the terms of the PPP contracts, a revenue sharing arrangement with the NRA becomes applicable in circumstances where pre-defined traffic thresholds are exceeded. Two PPP contracts, the M3 Clonee-Kells PPP and Limerick tunnel PPP incorporate a traffic guarantee mechanism, the purpose of which within the overall financial package for the project was to enhance the fundability of these projects and obtain competitive funding terms to the benefit of the taxpayer. These contracts were signed in 2007 and 2006, respectively.

In regard to future tolling plans, the national roads traffic management study published recently together with other work being undertaken by the NRA will help inform consideration of future tolling options. However, to date no decisions have been made in relation to future tolling strategy.

Nevertheless, given Ireland's overall financial situation and the restrictions on funding in the years ahead, the introduction of further tolls as a means of generating revenue for road investment needs into the future cannot be ruled out and warrants further serious and detailed consideration. Any future tolling policy is likely to be based on public tolls directly raising revenue rather than on private toll-based investment.

The Senator may wish to note that a number of further PPP roads are currently at tender stage. However, none of these new PPP schemes will be subject to tolling. Rather these are being implemented as unitary payment PPPs, that is by way of annual payments by the NRA for the duration of the contract. Again, I thank the Senator for raising this important matter. It is an area of consideration for the Government.