Limerick Shannon tunnel hits the Irish taxpayer

[realistic1]

It has now emerged that motorists are not using the new tolled Shannon tunnel in Limerick because of toll costs, but the operator does not care because the taxpayer has the pick up the bill for the shortfall. Is it now times for the current Government to review all these contracts with toll operators etc as these deals were done in a different economic climate? I have spoken to a lot of individuals about using the tunnel and their main reason for not using it is also the cost. Most of the people I know that drive cars say they would use it if the cost was reduced to 1 euro instead of the current 1.80 EURO one way cost.

I fear the Government/NRA answer to the above problem will be to install more traffic lights around Limerick city to force motorists on to the Toll tunnel. They have already created traffic havoc with the new traffic lights they have installed over the last year or so. See below link.



Truckers swerve Limerick Tunnel as NRA bails out operators - Business - Limerick Leader

[Social Conscience]

How in the name of fu*k do the NRA keep signing up to these guarantee schemes with these toll operating companies. It's like they place no credence on past history of similar projects.

ACCOUNTABILITY as usual is a foreign term in government.

Personally speaking I think the tunnel is very handy but I may use only once a week.

[vanla sighs]

The NRA should be hung, drawn and quartered. So the Irish tax payer picks up the bill once again, does anything in this country make any fvcking sense?

[realistic1]

How in the name of fu*k do the NRA keep signing up to these guarantee schemes with these toll operating companies. It's like they place no credence on past history of similar projects.

ACCOUNTABILITY as usual is a foreign term in government.

Personally speaking I think the tunnel is very handy but I may use only once a week.

Agree it is 'very handy' if you are a tourist who wants to avoid Limerick or just using it onece or twice a week but if you have to use it every day it is just to expensive.

[realistic1]

The NRA should be hung, drawn and quartered. So the Irish tax payer picks up the bill once again, does anything in this country make any fvcking sense?

As I said above, surely it is time to renegotiate these dodgy contracts?

[Gimpanzee]

The fundamental flaw in the plan was building a piece of infrastructure that was over spec'ed.

It has nothing really to do with the PPP. If we borrowed the money and had no toll we would still have paid for something that was too big for our needs and we'ed be paying far too much in repayments.

The operators (rightly it seems) never believed the traffic demand warranted this investment, and understandably covered their arses.

[ivnryn]

The operators (rightly it seems) never believed the traffic demand warranted this investment, and understandably covered their arses.

Maybe. This is why transparency is needed. An intentional "mistake" in a contract like this can shift public money to the government's "friends". How was the operator decided, did they do a reverse auction?

Also, if the contract means that it is in their interests to keep prices high and take the guarantee, then that is an issue with the contract.

[Gimpanzee]

Maybe. This is why transparency is needed. An intentional "mistake" in a contract like this can shift public money to the government's "friends". How was the operator decided, did they do a reverse auction?

Also, if the contract means that it is in their interests to keep prices high and take the guarantee, then that is an issue with the contract.

in a nutshell the operators do the deal on the basis that they get at least €x guaranteed. Just like if we borrowed directly from AIB, (who funded this PPP) we'ed still be paying a guaranteed amount back regardless of the traffic levels.

In the PPP, if traffic greatly exceeds expectations (as happened on the M50) then they hit the jackpot and that understandably causes anger. But that is the polar opposite of what we have here.

In this case they are not hitting the traffic levels required to generate the minimum agreed revenue so the state has to compensate them. It isn't in their interest to keep prices higher than the optimum. If halving the price would generate little over twice the traffic then they are still going to be compensated.

Bottom line - it was just too expensive for the traffic levels. Much of our fancy motorway network was over the top, but a simple road is not going to need the same sort of toll revenues as a tunnel to make it worthwhile.

[Gimpanzee]

As I said above, surely it is time to renegotiate these dodgy contracts?

The contract isn't the root of the problem. The underutilised tunnel is.

[Social Conscience]

in a nutshell the operators do the deal on the basis that they get at least €x guaranteed.

Is there any reason why the NRA or a seperate arm of this state body could not be the company that operates this toll?