Tolling is here to stay

Transport Minister Seamus Brennan has warned that tolls on selected national primary routes are here to stay.
Speaking over the weekend Mr Brennan said that tolling was vital to improve the roads network, pointing out that tolling injected euro 14 million into the economy on an annual basis.

Public Private partnerships also have a role to play, but he said that there could be a bigger input from the private sector.
Mr Brennan said that spiralling land and construction costs meant that 20 per cent less roads were constructed last year. The minister said he will meet with the National Roads Authority (NRA) in the near future to get "an exact breakdown of what can be achieved with the amount of money the Government has to spend on roads".

In a separate development the government has been told that immediate funding for the roads programme is required because planning on crucial roads projects under the National Development Plan has slowed downed or stopped.
The Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI) says that further delays at the planning and design stage will mean that roads expected to be completed by 2006 will be delayed by as much as a decade with disastrous effects on the economy.