The Westlink toll plaza in Dublin is providing a "bad service" and must be changed, the Minister for Transport Martin Cullen said today.
It emerged today that Westlink operator, National Toll Roads (NTR), had proposed to Mr Cullen that cash-at-the-barrier payments be replaced by a compsrehensive sytem of either prepaid toll or electronic payment.
The proposals emerged at a meeting after the Minister announced in May this year that cash was being set aside for the creation of barrier-free tolling as part of an €810 million upgrading package for the M50.
Talks involving NTR the National Roads Authority and the Department of Transport over the upgrading are ongoing an include ways of improving the flow of traffic through the Westlink which now takes over 90,000 vehicles a day.
One of the stumbling blocks in the introduction of open-gate tolling is establishing effective methods of catching those who pass through without paying.
One of NTR's proposals in minutes of a meeting with Mr Cullen obtained by RTE under the Freedom of Information Act was to apply penalty points to those who do not pay the toll.
Mr Cullen today said he had an open mind about the penalty points proposal but in his strongest comments yet, he said the current situation at the Westlink could not continue.
"I want to move to barrier-free tolling and I want the situation resolved. I'm not prepared to put up with the plaza, the way it operates on the M50.
"It's a very a bad service for the customer and that is something that I appreciate the customer does not want.
"I believe people will pay for a reasonable service if it works well [but] that could not be said of what's happening on the M50 at present," Mr Cullen said.
Legislation is currently being drafted to develop a system of penalising non-payers and is understood to be at an advanced stage.
Already a barrier-free system operates at the Westlink, but provision was scaled back from two booths to one last summer due to lack of public interest.