Leo Varadkar calls for deferral in toll hikes

Tánaiste Leo Vardkar: 'There's no lack of financial commitment from the government to resolving the housing crisis.'

Tánaiste Leo Varadkar has said that the planning hike in toll charges on Ireland’s major roads should be deferred or reduced.

Speaking to RTÉ’s This Week, the Fine Gael leader said the Government was not aware of the planned increase ahead of the announcement but the Minister for Transport had been.

Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) confirmed during the week that motorway toll charges across the country will rise to their maximum permitted price in the coming weeks.

The price increases, which TII says are being introduced due to inflation, will come into effect on January 1, 2023.

On the M1, M7, M8, N6, N25 at Waterford and N18 Limerick Tunnel, tolls for cars will increase from €2 to €2.10.

For buses and large goods vehicles (LGVs), prices will increase from €3.50 to €3.80. Hauliers face hikes from €4.90 to €5.40 and €6.30 to €6.80 per journey, depending on whether the vehicle has two to three axles or four axles.

The president of the Irish Road Haulage Association expressed his disbelief that toll companies would be “so audacious” to announce the tolls hike at a time when there is a cost-of-living crisis.

IRHA president Eugene Drennan said the increase of 10% for trucks would mean an annual increase of between €20,000 to €30,000 for companies in the northwest of the country that have to make the longest journeys.

Many were already leaving the haulage sector because of increased fuel costs, he told RTÉ’s News at One.

Mr Varadkar said today he was not happy with the increases and that they weren’t coming at a good time.

He said the planned hikes were going to the maximum level that the TII could charge but they are not obliged to charge those rates.

Housing worries

Meanwhile, the Tánaiste also admitted the Government has “not yet turned the corner on housing” and that he’s “worried” about meeting targets for building new homes next year.

The Fine Gael leader said there is a “real difficulty” at the moment with construction and that it will be “very hard to make housing more affordable if we didn’t increase supply”.

Mr Varadkar, who is due to take over the role as Taoiseach again next month, was speaking following his speech at the Fine Gael Ard Fheis on Saturday night, which focused on law and order.

Speaking to On the Record with Gavan Reilly on Newstalk, he was pressed on recent media reports that suggested a third of the housing budget in the first nine months of this year had not been spent, amounting to almost €500m.

"Part of the reason is that we have the biggest budget for housing ever in the history of the state", the Tánaiste said.

“So, there's no lack of financial commitment from the government to resolving the housing crisis.” 

Mr Varadkar said that this underspend, which “looks very large”, will be a lot lower by the end of the year with options such as purchasing more land and helping local authorities pay down some of their debts on existing developments.

“There's no lack of political will,” he said. “There's no lack of compassion or care.

“But there are real constraints or real constraints that would be there no matter who's in government, [such as] availability of labor, the cost of materials and availability of materials like steel and concrete and timber, and lots of other constraints.” 

Fear for the future

He said that while he was confident that Ireland would meet its housing targets this year, he was worried about next year. It has also been pointed out that despite being on track to meet overall targets, the Government's affordable and social housing targets may not be achieved this year.

Also speaking to RTÉ’s The Week In Politics, the Tánaiste said he “absolutely acknowledges” that more needs to be done on housing and said “there is light at the end of the tunnel”.

He said options available to Government to “close the viability gap” for developers include tax breaks which cannot be ruled out.

He also suggested that the Land Development Agency could forward purchase homes, and allow developers and builders to go ahead and build homes.

“We can go out to the builder and say we’ll pre-purchase half the apartments, that de-risks the development,” Mr Varadkar said.

He said that there would be a shared responsibility across the Government parties if they don’t succeed in housing and that Fine Gael must work together with Fianna Fáil and the Greens to “make it happen”.