Smaller stores to refuse toll payments

UP TO 1,500 convenience stores and newsagents are refusing to handle payments for barrier-free tolling when it comes into operation in August.

From that month motorists who do not have an electronic payment tag, or have not pre-registered their vehicles for bill payments, are to be offered the opportunity to- make a €3 per trip payment in local shops.

However, the Convenience Store and Newsagents Association, which claims a membership of 1,500 outlets across the State, yesterday vowed to black the scheme in a row over commission.

Spokesman Vincent Jennings said talks with the National Roads Authority’s (NRA) agent, the electronic bill payment company Payzone, had broken down.

He told The Irish Times his members were offered three cents per €3 transaction in commission, a figure which equated to €1.80 per hour. On the basis of paying staff €10 per hour, net of PRSI, his members would not be operating the Payzone equipment.

On the basis of these figures the association was calculating that it would take shop assistants one minute to process each payment, a timescale Mr Jennings said he could stand over.

“We have to key in a customer’s car registration and take a lot of care with that. Without being racist, we have a lot of staff who wouldn’t have English for a first language and mistakes can only be rectified on a ‘last customer’ basis. We have to give them at least a minute to get the transaction correct.”

Attempts to get a comment from Payzone were unsuccessful yesterday.

A spokesman for the NRA said the dispute was a private commercial matter between the stores and Payzone, and one on which the authority could not comment.

Pressed on the implications for the barrier-free tolling scheme, spokesman Seán O’Neill said the authority had decided to increase the number of operators on its low-call payment phone number from 75 to 300 in order to deal with any surge in demand.