No to foreign toll roads

From recent press reports we learn that Irish motorists will soon face another hike in road tax, with an increase in road tolls.

The Government has not provided an economic rationale for the tolling of roads. The evidence to date shows that tolling does not deliver infrastructure any quicker or any more cheaply. Some estimates reveal that the public will pay 13 times more than necessary. It is well known that the most expensive means of road provision is private tolling.

There maybe some rationale for a Government toll where the user could at least be sure that the money collected would go into Irish coffers, to be spent on maintaining existing Irish roads and building new ones.

Why are we handing a virtual licence to print money over to the private sector, almost certainly non-national? Private foreign companies will come to Ireland like bees to a honey pot at the delightful prospect of taking over responsibility for the tolling of Irish roads for the next 30 years.

It is not as if Ireland does not have the money to build these roads. There is nothing to stop the Government borrowing money which it can do quite cheaply.

If it were still necessary to toll these roads they would generate a flow of income — at least we would have ownership of our roads, control over the location of tolls and the flexibility to adjust charges to prevent high diversion rates into towns, which will occur if the NRA gets its way in regard to tolling around towns.

It is simply not good enough to hand over control of large sections of the national road network to private, probably foreign, interests in the absence of any explanation of the necessity to do so, or any democratic input into safeguarding the interests of taxpayers.

Cllr Noel Collins

St Judes

Midleton

Co Cork