Speed-camera contract worth €115m set to be renewed with GoSafe

The GoSafe privatised speed camera operation costs the State about €10 million a year, figures released by Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald show.

The five-year contract, worth up to €115.5 million, to carry out speed monitoring up to 2021 is due for renewal in November. No winner of the tendering competition has been publicly announced but bidders have been told GoSafe has been chosen.

It is understood the announcement has been held up due to objections from two unsuccessful bidders.

Fines revenue

Run by an Isle of Man-based consortium, GoSafe has been providing a minimum of 6,000 hours of speed enforcement per month since 2010. The consortium was last year paid €17.27 million, of which €7.5 million was recouped for the exchequer through fines paid by motorists.

The cost is likely to rise in coming years as the State contract has recently been increased from 6,000 hours of monitoring per month to 7,400 hours.

Ms Fitzgerald released the figures in response to a parliamentary question from Independent TD for Tipperary Mattie McGrath.

The figures showed the gross cost of the system to the exchequer since 2010 was €87 million.

Mr McGrath said there was “no doubting the impact of the safety camera regime on reducing road fatalities and accidents” but he questioned “the enormous costs” of the scheme.

“In each year from 2012-2015 it cost the State over €17 million to maintain the contract with a cost of almost €16 million in 2011. For the same period of 2010 to date, revenue generated by from the safety camera contract has totalled €32.4 million.

“This means that there is just over €54 million in the difference between the operation of the contract and the revenue that it creates.”

Mr McGrath said he would like to see more information on the future contract due to be signed in November and “a much more detailed conversation around how the money might be better spent, even in terms of robustly resourcing the Garda Traffic Corps”.

GoSafe is the operating name of Road Safety Operations Ireland. The firm’s owners include Co Kerry businessman Xavier McAuliffe’s Spectra and a French company, Egis, who own 42 per cent each. The third owner is Redflex Holdings with 16 per cent.

Karen Finley, who was chief executive officer of Redflex’s US subsidiary and a director of the Australian parent company Redflex Holdings, is awaiting sentencing in a US court on August 10th, after pleaded guilty earlier this year to making illegal payments to a Chicago city official.