Madam, - You report the claim by DKM Consultants that "NTR took a significant risk when it decided to finance the [ West-Link] project" (The Irish Times, August 9th). Can anyone take this seriously? Where was the risk? What might have happened? Everyone switched to bicycles? We ran out of petrol? The State insisted on NTR charging below-cost tolls? The State didn't take the greater risk of building the M50?
None of these ever seemed likely. In reality the State awarded a monopoly to a private company to charge for one link in an otherwise Statefunded motorway. Could the expert economists suggest how NTR might not have made indecent amounts of money? - Yours, etc,
Dr KEVIN RYAN, Castletroy Heights, Limerick.