Creeping privatisation - Who benefits most from toll roads?

THERE are all sorts of cost and environmental reasons to reduce our dependency on private cars but now it seems we will have to add the growing number of toll roads to that equation.

Figures published this week suggest that motorists in some parts of the country will have to pay up to €50 a week just to drive their heavily taxed car to an expensive parking place so they can get to work.

If you are a PAYE worker commuting to and from Dublin that means you may have to earn nearly €5,000 a year just to pay tolls. Add to that another €4,000 to pay the average €2,000 per annum parking bill and you’d be entitled to feel a tad glum. Basically, very many commuters face another levy so they can get to work to pay their bills. The fact that it is a levy to enhance the bottom line of a private company rather that a contribution to the Government to fund some public service or other makes the idea even less palatable.

Add that to large, 30-year mortgages, some of the most expensive childcare in Europe, free education that costs thousands, ravaged pension schemes and a mistrust of our health system that almost obliges those who can afford it to buy private health insurance and it is easy to understand why there is such disenchantment, such disengagement, with our system of governance. That this fundamental change in how we finance infrastructure came during a decade-and-a-half of exceptional growth makes it even more difficult to understand.

We, with the help of the EU, should have been able to build all of our roads, not just those too quiet for a profitable toll, without recourse to the private sector.

Apart from the M50 and Dublin Port Tunnel, the private sector is involved in nine leading projects. Last year, the Government bought National Toll Road’s stake in the M50 toll barrier for €500m, multiples of what it cost the company to build the bridge.

These figures suggest the developers are more interested in the captive customers attached to such projects rather than providing infrastructure for a fair profit.

This is a fundamental change in the philosophy behind what we consider, or once did, an obligation of the Government. We should be able to rely on it to put the essentials of life — water, power, transport, health and educational infrastructure and a few more basic requirements — in place without having to create a profit margin for private investors. This, of course, does not mean that these services should not be paid for, it just means that they should not be expected to generate a profit beyond that which will sustain them and allow further development for the common good.

Most of us know the story about the two country solicitors, each engaged by clients at loggerheads. One wrote to the other describing their clients as “two fat geese” and suggested, “you pluck one, I’ll pluck the other”. With the advance of toll roads and the privatisation of our health service, Aer Lingus and the disastrous sale of our telecommunications network — and the prospect of the ESB being sold — it is time we all checked our plumage.

As in so many aspects of Irish life we are prepared to commit great energy and passion to debating incidentals; however, this kind of social change is fundamental and has not been properly debated, let alone mandated.

We should, before even one more tree is sold off, have the discussion to establish whose interests are being served and how the public’s interests are best served.