Road tolls hit drivers for €2m every week
The company, which operates the Westlink and Eastlink bridges in Dublin and the tolled motorway linking the city with Drogheda and Dundalk, said revenue in its roads division climbed 25% to €26m in the first six months of the year.
The increase was fuelled by higher traffic levels and Government-sanctioned hikes in toll charges.
Total tolls paid came to €49m. The State received a €22m cut from the total, which was made up of licence fees, VAT and commercial rates.
Motorists face fresh charges in the years ahead when new toll roads come into operation at Fermoy on the Dublin-Cork route, Kilcock and Kinnegad on the road linking Dublin with Galway, the Clonee-Kells motorway in Co Meath, and on planned bypasses of Limerick and Waterford.
NTR said the State took over 50 cents in every €1 collected from motorists using the Westlink on the M50 ring around Dublin.
The Westlink accounted for the bulk of toll charges, generating almost €35m, - or over €1.3m every week - for NTR and the State.
Drivers using the Eastlink handed over €5.7m - or €220,000 per week - while those on the M1 motorway paid €9m - €350,000 each week.
NTR has licences to collect tolls on the Westlink until 2020 and the Eastlink until 2015.
NTR finance director Michael Walsh said criticism of the company’s charges was misplaced and that NTR’s toll plaza was not to blame for long tailbacks on the M50. He said that the plaza could cope with 8,000 vehicles per hour, which was comfortably ahead of the 7,000 vehicles per hour level for which the M50 motorway had been designed by Government road planners.
Mr Walsh rejected suggestions by the Progressive Democrats to cut queuing times and ease traffic congestion by scrapping tolls on vehicles travelling in one direction and doubling the toll for those going the other way. This was likely to encourage drivers to take detours to avoid the higher toll and add to existing traffic levels on the route where tolls were scrapped, he said.
But he added that the company would work with the NRA to help alleviate congestion on the M50 by introducing a barrier-free system that would allow vehicles to travel through the toll plaza more quickly and be more customer-friendly.
The company also said it was forced to hand over €1.8m to the Government to address a shortfall in its licence payments during 2002 and 2003.
Mr Walsh said the underpayment arose thanks to an error in calculating the amount due. The error went unnoticed by the Department of Transport, the National Roads Authority (NRA) and the company itself until earlier this year.
