25/01/2011

€900M Spend For Roads As Overcharging Revealed

The Transport Minister Pat Carey has today announced a spend of €866.96 million for the National Roads Programme, just as the National Roads Authority revealed serious overcharging by toll companies.

According to the Department of Transport this morning, the funding worth nearly a billion euros will provide four new significant road schemes for Belturbet, Longford and Tralee By-Passes and Cork Southern Ring Road Interchanges.

The money also continues to fund the final payments due in respect of the five major inter-urban routes completed in 2010.

Commenting on the funding announcement Minister Pat Carey said: "Our modern road and motorway infrastructure has helped reduce fatalities on our roads, an aim which the Government will continue to pursue relentlessly.

"The transport infrastructure we have developed in recent years is vital to our economic recovery and underpinning the National Recovery Plan 2011-2014 is an investment of over €4.8 billion in our national transport infrastructure."

However, it was also revealed today that a toll operator on one of the country’s most frequented roads stands to make almost €1.4 million from overcharging motorists, according to the National Roads Authority (NRA).

The authority made the assertion in the Commercial Court that motorists using the Gormanston to Monasterboice stretch of the M1 motorway are being overcharged by the Celtic Roads Group by some €26,000 a week since January 1 and will be overcharged by €1.39m this year unless the tolls are reduced.

Some 11 million vehicles used the M1 toll road last year, the court heard.

The court expressed concern that no arrangements for compensation were in place if the tolls were indeed exploitative, and a date for an urgent further hearing was fixed for February 22.

According to the Irish Examiner this morning, earlier this month the NRA claimed four other toll operators on the M4, M6, M8 and N25 were also required to lower their tolls but only the operators of the M6 had done so.

(DW)

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