No penalty for those who don't get tags on time - NRA

MOTORISTS WHO have not received their electronic tags by the time the M50 goes barrier-free on Saturday will not be penalised as a result, the National Roads Authority (NRA) has said.

Concerns have been raised by some of the 55,000 motorists who have registered for their tags that they will be charged higher rates to use the M50 if they do not receive them in time.

Under the new system, to come into effect this weekend, motorists who purchase or lease tags will pay a lower toll on the M50 than those who do not.

National Roads Authority senior engineer Hugh Cregan said it had begun sending out tags on Monday and all those who had applied for them should receive them by Friday.

He said that for adminstrative reasons it was always the intention of the NRA to wait until the final week before sending out the tags.

He stressed that motorists who did not receive their tags in time would be treated as if they had received them and would pay the €2 toll applicable to tag-holders.

The tag, which is an electronic sensor placed on the windscreen of the car, is the cheapest way of paying the toll.

Those who register their number plates with the NRA will be charged €2.50, while motorists who neither acquire a tag nor register will have to pay €3 by 8pm on the day after they incur the toll.

"We always planned that the tags would go out in the last week before barrier-free goes live. The way the system is set up we will still identify those vehicles as tag-equipped vehicles. Everybody who has already registered for a tag will be treated from that point on as if the tag was already there."

AA Roadwatch public affairs manager Conor Faughnan said there remained a lot of "unnecessary confusion" among motorists as to what tolls to pay once the M50 goes barrier-free.

" A lot of people who applied for tags and did not get them would not have been clear that the plan to issue them was not until the final week," he said.

"We're going to have months of motorists being confused about what is going on and with all sorts of administrative problems in between."

Work on dismantling the toll plaza will begin on Monday morning. For the first week traffic will run through the inner four lanes of the toll bridge on both sides as the three outer lanes are dismantled by the engineering company Johns, which has been working on the upgrade of the M50.

Once the toll plazas on the outside lanes are removed, the road will be resurfaced and relined and traffic will run through them for eight weeks.

The tougher task of demolishing the central lanes and the central building, which has a basement underneath it, will begin the week after next.

The work is due to be finished by late October.

The NRA also says it intends to pursue motorists from outside the State who fail to pay the tolls.