I move amendment No. 110:
In page 52, to delete lines 11 and 12, and substitute "in the case of National Regional and local roads the elected members of the local authority in whose administrating area, the road is located;".
This amendment is probably one of the most critical amendments. Amendment No. 110 and the group of amendments related to it, all of which are being discussed, relate to the provisions for the tolling of roads. Until now the power to make a decision to toll a road of any kind was vested in the elected members of a local authority. Toll schemes have been made in several instances. The East Link Bridge is a classic example, as is the West Link Bridge, that being a toll scheme that I myself, as a member of Dublin County Council, supported. I am not opposed in principle to the concept of tolling. I am opposed to the provision in this Bill that will for national roads remove from local authorities the power to make a tolling scheme and will give that power to the National Roads Authority.
I have an immediate reason for expressing concern about this matter. Before the Bill was introduced, a backdoor, surreptitious attempt to toll the "C" ring around Dublin was made by one of the Minister's predecessors. About two years ago an arrangement was made with an American company to make a toll scheme on the Western Parkway, part of the "C" ring around Dublin. The absurd position obtained wherein, with the authority of the Minister's predecessor, toll plinths were erected on the section of the motorway then being built at Clondalkin and those toll plinths subsequently had to be removed at the direction of Dublin County Council. The total cost, between putting up the plinths and then taking them down, amounted to about £50,000. That was an utter waste of public money in an attempt made by the Minister's predecessor to toll a road that was being built with public money. Having failed to introduce that measure through the backdoor, it would appear that the Government is now attempting to achieve the tolling of that road by way of making a provision in this Bill that will shift the power for the making of a toll scheme from the local authority to the National Roads Authority. The "C" ring around Dublin is presently under construction. As I said earlier, the Northern Cross, the Southern Cross and the South-Eastern motorway are completed.
I want a specific statement from the Minister on whether it is still his intention and that of his Department to toll that road. Of course, the effect of tolling that road would defeat its whole purpose, which was to take heavy concentrations of traffic out of residential areas. If it is tolled the Minister would end up with the kind of problem at present obtaining in areas such as Ringsend where traffic trying to avoid the toll on the East Link Bridge winds its way through residential areas. The Minister might well end up with the same position if he were to toll the motorway now being constructed around Dublin.
This amendment has been tabled against the background of an unsuccessful attempt by the Minister's predecessor to place toll booths and require motorists using the motorway now being built around Dublin to pay a toll — toll plinths were erected and subsequently demolished. The local authority concerned has already made it clear that it does not intend to impose a toll scheme for that motorway for a whole variety or reasons. But the views of the local authority will be neither here nor there if this section is passed unamended. It will take from elected members of local authorities the power to impose a toll and place it in the hands of the people appointed by the Minister to be members of the National Roads Authority.
