800 million taxpayers euros into the NTR- PPP pocket.?

[untouchable]

Yet another black hole in Taxpayers pockets. Is the Westlink buyout, Martin Cullen's greatest ever "Race to Waste"?

The port tunnel -if it ever opens will not facilitate the new generation of super trucks. Smaller carriers will however fit through and this happy prospect plus the proposed 800 million Euro buy out of the iniquitous "West Link toll bridge" will probably put enough lorries onto the M50, with sufficient rapidity, to ensure that the current logjam at the toll bridge will transfer to the Mad Cow roundabout where most of them will be exiting for The south of the country.

the Tailback from the Lucan road exit where lorries will exit for the west will probably block one of the three lanes on the Westlink bridge entirely right back past the soon-t- be-defunct toll plaza at peak periods.

The buy out of the Toll Bridge is a scandalous waste of money.The state will shortly, according to their original contract ,be benefitting from a revenue take of almost 100% of all extra vehicles on the M50.

(See the table from the NTR own web page on our link page)

http://www.soldiersofdestiny.org/tollbridgeripoff.htm

The simple solution of sufficient booths, pre-paid, and electronic tolling, is being discarded .Every vehicle using the road could have an obligatory on line pre-paid account with NTR and the bridge could be opened tomorrow using scanning technology.

Instead 800 million euros is being paid to the NTR syndicate of wealthy farmers and big business just when the bridge is reaching its optimum benefit for the state. Is this Fianna Fail's greatest ever betrayal of the taxpayers of Ireland.

Every other country in Europe can operate an efficient toll plaza on a two or three lane highway-why not in Ireland.?

So much for 800 million in NTR,s pockets, plus a few billion for the Port Black Hole.This is a scandal which being a populist move- none of the media or opposition parties have picked up on. It is of course possible that after the pay-off and after the election, three new toll booths may emerge along the length of the entire M-50,and ALL the revenue may accrue to the state.!!

[Catalpa]

Yet another black hole in Taxpayers pockets. Is the Westlink buyout, Martin Cullen's greatest ever "Race to Waste"?

The port tunnel -if it ever opens will not facilitate the new generation of super trucks. Smaller carriers will however fit through and this happy prospect plus the proposed 800 million Euro buy out of the iniquitous "West Link toll bridge" will probably put enough lorries onto the M50, with sufficient rapidity, to ensure that the current logjam at the toll bridge will transfer to the Mad Cow roundabout where most of them will be exiting for The south of the country.

the Tailback from the Lucan road exit where lorries will exit for the west will probably block one of the three lanes on the Westlink bridge entirely right back past the soon-t- be-defunct toll plaza at peak periods.

The buy out of the Toll Bridge is a scandalous waste of money.The state will shortly, according to their original contract ,be benefitting from a revenue take of almost 100% of all extra vehicles on the M50.

(See the table from the NTR own web page on our link page)

http://www.soldiersofdestiny.org/tollbridgeripoff.htm

The simple solution of sufficient booths, pre-paid, and electronic tolling, is being discarded .Every vehicle using the road could have an obligatory on line pre-paid account with NTR and the bridge could be opened tomorrow using scanning technology.

Instead 800 million euros is being paid to the NTR syndicate of wealthy farmers and big business just when the bridge is reaching its optimum benefit for the state. Is this Fianna Fail's greatest ever betrayal of the taxpayers of Ireland.

Every other country in Europe can operate an efficient toll plaza on a two or three lane highway-why not in Ireland.?

So much for 800 million in NTR,s pockets, plus a few billion for the Port Black Hole.This is a scandal which being a populist move- none of the media or opposition parties have picked up on. It is of course possible that after the pay-off and after the election, three new toll booths may emerge along the length of the entire M-50,and ALL the revenue may accrue to the state.!!

I advocated a buyout 5 years ago or more or at the very least an electronic payement system.

Now we are paying a lot more to people who already have it in buckets.

Though I suppose this payment of our money to wealthy businessmen and farmers will do the FF coffers no harm at all!

[untouchable]

'While the Authority considers that the toll operator is managing the individual lane throughputs at the plaza efficiently, it is nonetheless the case that the toll facility at West-Link is not satisfactory for the current traffic volumes. It is both the NRA’s and NTR’s view that the solution at West-Link is to convert the West-Link Toll Plaza to a fully free-flow electronic toll collection system over time. By this is meant that road users would meet no barriers at West-link and would pass through at standard motorway speed. For electronic tag holders the toll fee would be deducted automatically from their account. It is envisaged that users without electronic tags would be able to make payments after their passage by means of telephone/internet/post. It is the Authority’s intention that this free-flow stage will be reached to coincide with the opening of the fully upgraded M50 in and around 2010. To this end the Department of Transport is currently preparing legislation that will support the introduction of barrier free tolling."
this is a paragraph from the NRA site below:

http://nra.ie/PublicPrivatePartnership/ ... inkBridge/

I would love to know,though, how a win win situation for the long suffering taxpayer suddenly became a golden handshake for big business.?
The money lost to the exchequer is vast.Not only the 800 million but the very sizable revenue from the toll charges which -as I have pointed out-were now at a level of 80 percent of each toll fee as the agreement on the website.
In effect NTR were making no more money from the increase in traffic-it was all going to the state.! They got their way obviously and off loaded the whole problem on the public, for 800 million euros.
The disruption from new roadworks will be so bad for the next 5 years that the traffic will still be moving as slowly as if the toll was never removed.!! The officials in the NRA certainly knew this.
It is incredible that this deal was ever mooted-and more incredible that it is going to happen.!