Drivers leave €300,000 at toll booths after driving away without change

Both the M3 and the M7/M8 brought in roughly €29m in toll income with around €65,000 in change left behind in plaza buckets. File picture: Denis Minihane

Motorists left behind more than €300,000 at toll booths last year after driving away without change when passing through a motorway plaza.

Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) toll booths generated nearly half a billion euro in 2025 with the chronically congested M50 accounting for more than 40% of the total.

TII also revealed that there was €445,000 worth of unpaid tolls nationwide last year although they refused to provide a breakdown of which roads were most problematic on security grounds.

The transport operator said a further €5.93m of bad debt was written off on M50 tolls, according to records released under FOI.

The Dublin ring road — despite its reputation for almost daily gridlock — continues, however, to be a cash cow, generating €216.6m in toll revenue last year.

Payments for use of the M1, which connects the capital to the border, totalled €52.4m in 2025. Motorists left around €102,000 in tolls behind when travelling on that motorway, TII data showed.

The M4 motorway, linking Dublin with the West, generated €49.45m in toll revenue with just €9,000 in overpayments.

The next highest earning road was the Dublin Port Tunnel, where motorists forked out €35.4m for a shortcut in and out of the city centre. Around €27,000 in overpaid tolls were left behind by motorists.

The Limerick Tunnel generated almost €31m in income for its operators with overpayments of around €31,000.

Both the M3 and the M7/M8 brought in roughly €29m in toll income with around €65,000 in change left behind in plaza buckets. Toll revenue of €15.62m was reported on the N6, €24.7m on the M8, and €14.6m on the N25.

Across the board, the use of electronic tolling systems or tags accounted for around two-thirds of all payments.

Transport Infrastructure Ireland

Transport Infrastructure Ireland said every plaza in the country had an option for people to receive exact change if they wished.

A TII spokesman added: “The Government identified a role for Public Private Partnerships (PPPs) as a means of delivering critical public infrastructure. 

"It was a Government policy decision to assist with the delivery of the new motorways.

“The revenues collected on these toll roads are collected by the relevant PPP company and are generally used … to repay loans borrowed to finance construction of the road and to fund ongoing operations and maintenance activities.”