Toll firm denies M1 overcharging

A toll operator accused of overcharging motorists using a stretch of the M1 motorway by €26,000 per week since January 1st has denied the claims, the Commercial Court heard today.

Celtic Roads Group (Dundalk) Ltd claims it was effectively promised via a Dáil statement last year by former transport minister Noel Dempsey that the relevant laws provided only for tolls to be increased.

The National Roads Authority, which has brought proceedings against CRGD denies the Minister’s statement could be regarded as a promise or amounted to a legitimate expectation that tolls would only increase. The statement was also made after the NRA agreed a contract with CGRD in 2004, he added.

The authority claims the bye laws do not make any express reference to an upward only toll system and provide a mechanism to allow for a decrease.

The court heard the Consumer Price Index – which is used to calculate the maximum toll allowed – fell in 2009 for the first time in 50 years. The bye laws allow for a “cushion” of a year, so tolls did not fall, but, after the CPI rose just slightly in 2010, the NRA claims the toll should now decrease.

Mr Justice Peter Kelly said the formula used to work out the maximum allowable toll was “labyrinthine” and remarked there “must be an easier way to do this”.

Shane Murphy SC, for the NRA, also disputed claims the authority contributed to a legitimate expectation that tolls would only increase because of various presentations made by it to the effect tolls could only increase by reference to inflation. CRGD was effectively seeking to be insulated “from all external realities”, counsel said.

He was opening the action before Mr Justice Kelly in which the NRA alleges CGRD has breached the relevant bye-laws in its toll charges for 2011 on the Gormanstown to Monasterboice stretch of the M1 motorway. CGRD had entered into a contract with the NRA in February 2004 to operate the relevant toll facilities.

The case centres on the proper construction of the relevant bye-laws and was initiated late last month. It was given an accelerated hearing date after the judge noted, if the NRA was correct, there was no means whereby overcharged motorists would be compensated.

The NRA claims motorists using the relevant M1 stretch are being over-charged since January 1st and, as some 11 million vehicles used the MI last year, will be overcharged by some €1.39 million this year unless the tolls are reduced. It claims toll charges should have been reduced from January 1st last and, for example, the toll per car should be €1.80, not €1.90 as of now.

Motorists using other motorway routes will also be over-charged if its interepretation of the relevant bye-laws is correct, the NRA alleges. Those routes are the N8 Rathcormac/Fermoy by-pass; the N25 Waterford by-pass and the M4 Kinnegad-Enfield-Kilcock motorway.

The NRA rejects defence arguments the bye-laws provide only for upwards only revision of toll charges. The tolls being imposed now exceed the maximum tolls chargeable under the appropriate formula provided for in the bye-laws, it claims.

The court heard, up to 2009, the maximum allowable toll charges equated to the actual toll charges imposed each year. The court also heard the toll calculation process is linked to inflation and the Consumer Price Index increased every year from 1959 until 2009, when it fell for the first time. In 2010, it showed a small increase.

Because of the 2009 fall in the CPI, the defendant company claims a particular provision of the bye-laws applies entitling it to impose the disputed higher charges but the NRA denies that.

CRG has also queried the consistency of the NRA’s own conduct in relation to the relevant bye-laws. The NRA effectively operates the M50 itself and appeared not have to have reduced tolls there, it has claimed.