Tolls on M50 compared to Afghan lords 'fleecing peasants'

Toll charges on the M50 were described in the Dáil as medieval and compared to an Afghan warlord fleecing peasants who crossed a pass he controlled.

In the row over the upgrading of the Dublin toll plaza and the question of charges along the entire M50 route, Socialist TD Joe Higgins (Dublin West) said people spent two hours every day sitting in traffic on the motorway.

In 20 years they would spend an entire one year and one month camped on the M50, or the equivalent of three years and three months working an eight-hour day.

Labour leader Pat Rabbitte said as part of the M50 upgrade there would be three or four other tolls on a distributor road.

"Of all the hare-brained, half-baked, off the top of the head mismanaged solutions, this was the worst."

Taoiseach Bertie Ahern insisted no decision had been made about future tolls, and experts had declared it would take up to two years to introduce barrier-free tolling.

He said they could not get rid of tolling if they were to complete the kind of road infrastructure that was required. Far wealthier countries have toll roads.

"We must upgrade the road, enhance the road and bring in the best technology we can."

National Toll Roads, the toll-operating company, had a contract that had to be honoured.

In a rowdy Dáil session, Mr Higgins told the Taoiseach that "you just don't get it", and warned that "the agony of the M50 cannot go on".

"If a warlord in the Hindu Kush controlled a vital pass and fleeced the unfortunate peasants who had to pass through it every day for their livelihoods, some people would say, well that's Afghanistan, it's the dark ages.

"It defies belief that in the capital city of the Ireland of 2006, that tens of thousands of working people making their way to work are being held to ransom because they have to cross the River Liffey, control of which has been given to a private company."

Mr Higgins said the Constitution stated that private ownership should be curtailed by the common good.

"If there was ever an example of the common good, it is that those barriers over the River Liffey are removed forthwith."

Mr Rabbitte asked: "Is there any understanding over there, from those of you who are driven around the place, of the punishment taken by the long-suffering motorist, and the prospect of installing four new tolls on what is now a distributor road for this city?"

Minister for Transport Martin Cullen accused the Labour leader of "talking out of both sides of your mouth".

Insisting that no decision had been made on new toll roads, Mr Ahern said the M50 would be upgraded and barrier-free tolling would be introduced. It would take two years to do this, according to the experts.

He said it was a condition of An Bord Pleanála that a traffic study be carried out.

They could not end tolls if they were to carry out the infrastructural work that was needed, Mr Ahern insisted.