Dublin Corporation has offered telecoms operators a six-month moratorium on increases in road-digging fees to overcome a bitter dispute between the two parties. The offer was made just days before the corporation was due to impose a fourfold increase in the fees it charges firms to dig up the streets of Dublin.

The deferment is part of a package of measures designed to overcome the dispute between the two parties over digging fees - the amount charged by local authorities for access to dig up public roadways to lay infrastructure such as fibre optic cable.

The corporation had indicated that fees would rise to €63.49 (£50) per metre yesterday, a significant rise from current charges of about £12 per metre. But following recent talks between the two parties Dublin Corporation officials have agreed to offer what it describes as a last ditch compromise. The measures include a six-month deferment of digging fees rises and the agreed implementation of a 50 per cent increase on the current charges from July 1st. This would increase the fees to €22.86 per metre. Corporation officials are concerned that work which telecoms operators and other firms undertake on public roads cause significant long-term damage to structures and should be compensated for in full. In contrast, telecoms operators argue that rises in levies would stop them from investing in Dublin and lead to a lack of competitiveness.

Mr Owen Keegan, Dublin Corporation's director of traffic, said the corporation had now accepted that its proposal to increase fees fourfold was unrealistic. But he said tax payers should not have to pay for the costs of road digging by firms or the administrative costs associated with the fees.