West-Link toll operator built 3.2km of M50

National Toll Roads, operator of the West-Link bridge in Dublin, has an interest in a 3.2km section of the M50 motorway.

The company built the 3.2km stretch of the M50 between the West-Link and the N3 Blanchardstown interchange in 1998/99 as it was building the first of its two Liffey bridges.

While ownership of the road now resides with the State, chairman of National Toll Roads Jim Barry told the Dáil Committee on Public Accounts yesterday that the company retained legal rights and interests over the road which would have to be negotiated to facilitate the widening of the M50 to three lanes. Such talks would be in addition to negotiations on the West-Link toll buy-out, which Mr Barry estimated would cost the State €600 million at 2005 prices.

The information prompted Laois/Offaly Fianna Fáil TD Seán Fleming to describe the section of road built by the company as a "ransom strip" which could inflate the overall cost of buying out the company's entire M50 interest. He said: "Well done to National Toll Roads, shame on the State."

While Mr Barry told the committee that his company would "take a very pragmatic, constructive approach" to the State's need to build a third lane, he added: "We have a financial interest, and I have a financial responsibility to shareholders in National Toll Roads."

Another factor which could inflate the cost of the buy-out further has also emerged.

With the opening of the Dublin Port Tunnel scheduled for May, an extra 2,200 lorries will be using the tunnel, according to a Department of Transport estimate.

As the cost of buying out the toll facility is based on revenue generated in the 12 months before buy-out, the port tunnel traffic is set to become a significant factor, increasing the €600 million figure to about €750 million by 2008, when the deal is due to be done.

News of the company's extended interests prompted Fine Gael's transport spokeswoman, Olivia Mitchell, to comment that "buying out the West-Link will now cost more than the Government gets from the sale of Aer Lingus".

There was an audible intake of breath in the room when Mr Barry said that the West-Link toll plaza was not responsible for the congestion and delays on the road. He said he could be absolutely confident that, if the barriers were raised immediately, it would have little or no effect on congestion on the M50.

He said that the road was operating at or very close to capacity, and delays occurred at junctions at Finglas, Ballymun and Blanchardstown before reaching the toll plaza. The bridges were, in fact, the only part of the four-lane motorway where six lanes were in place already.

Fianna Fáil's Seán Ardagh TD said that the only real way to test this theory was to raise the barriers for one day. He suggested that National Toll Roads should raise them on St Valentine's Day as a gesture of goodwill.

Socialist TD Joe Higgins said one way out of the situation would be to ask Mr Barry to forgo his "golden goose". Fred Barry, of the National Roads Authority, said the authority believed that the toll plaza was a contributor to congestion. The problems were the West-Link barrier toll, the inadequate junctions and inadequate carriageways.

He said the new toll method would be initially a single-point, barrier-free toll which might after 2008 be expanded to a multi-point system.

Senator Shane Ross said it was clear this was not what Minister for Transport Martin Cullen had said. He accused the Minister of "having caught vertigo because he had been spinning so hard".