Firm defends West Link toll rise

National Toll Roads has defended its decision to increase toll charges on the M50 motorway by 20 per cent from January 1st.

Motorists will pay €1.80 for every journey over the West Link bridge - an increase of 30 cent on the current charge.

Senator Mary O'Rourke has described the increase as "pure greed".

Mr Jim Barry, NTR's chief executive, said the toll price was the product of a Government strategy. "Of the 50 cents increase in car toll rate over the last two years, 38 cents goes straight to the Government," he said on RTÉ's This Week.

"Of the €1.80 car toll rate, €1 goes to the Government, so the price at West Link is what the Government and the National Roads Authority determine it to be."

Mr Barry said the company had taken on a significant risk in 1987 by taking on the project. "The company is gaining proportionally on the back of that but so is the State because with every increase in the volume of traffic, the Government is taking an ever greater share."

Ms Olivia Mitchell, Fine Gael's spokeswoman on transport, said the 20 per cent increase was "absolutely frightening" given that inflation was running at 3 per cent.

She said the Government had made a very bad deal and the motorists were now bearing all the pain. Not only that, but motorists felt the toll bridge was holding up traffic rather than facilitating it.

There was a perception that NTR was extracting the "last pound of flesh", particularly as it never lifted the barriers to let traffic through when long traffic jams built up.

Mr Barry said lifting the barriers would make no difference to congestion.

"It's not the three or four minutes spent queuing at the toll plaza that's the problem. It's the 30 minutes spent getting past the Blanchardstown interchange or the Red Cow interchange."

He said it would be dangerous to lift the barriers and allow that volume of traffic demerge and merge without the regulating dynamic of the barriers.

"In the period between 2001 and 2003, this company invested €23 million in a new piece of infrastructure and it's fair and legitimate that we seek the return which we agreed."

He said 21 cent of the 30 cent increase would be used to accelerate the €800 million upgrade of the M50.