Written answers

Tuesday, 2 November 2004

9:00 pm

Seán Ryan (Dublin North, Labour)
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Question 140: To ask the Minister for Transport if he has plans to introduce new toll routes to fund completion of motorways linking Dublin with Cork, Galway, and the M50 upgrade; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26983/04]

Photo of Martin CullenMartin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)
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The national development plan provides for significant private sector investment in the national roads development programme. In line with this policy, a number of major road upgrade projects throughout the country are being implemented by the NRA by means of public private partnerships, with the private sector being remunerated, in part, by user tolls. This will ensure earlier delivery of vital national road infrastructure.

The NRA's current PPP programme comprises ten projects. In selecting these PPP projects the NRA had regard to a number of factors, including a geographical spread of tolls across the network; the extent of service improvement to be provided by the improved route; the availability of sufficiently high traffic volumes to ensure commercial viability; and the setting of tolls at an affordable and acceptable level to reduce diversion and gain public acceptance.

Having regard to these criteria it is clear that there is limited capacity, over and above the projects already identified by the NRA, across the national road network to support viable tolling arrangements. Nevertheless the increased cost of the national roads programme, combined with the demands of the other sectors which limit the capacity to allocate more Exchequer funding, require that all possibilities for generating additional funding to accelerate the implementation of the national roads programme be considered. In this context, and that of a broader review of the arrangements for the delivery of the programme, the NRA has identified a number of options for the development of tolling policy to enable the NRA to raise additional funding for the national roads programme. The proposals submitted by the NRA are currently being considered, in the first instance, in my Department.

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