PriceWatch: Eazy Pass, the electronic toll payment facility operating at the country's three toll plazas, has attracted the ire of a PriceWatch reader from Dublin.

David Reddy takes issue with the service charge the company, which is owned by National Toll Roads, imposes on customers who sign up for the electronic payment system. A cash customer using the East-link pays €1.45 each time they pass through the toll gate, he says.

"After signing up for Eazy Pass option the customer still has to pay €1.45 but is also charged a €14.52 'annual service charge' for the pleasure of having an account."

"This the first time I've come across a 'service charge' for maintaining an account with the likes of NTR. Certainly companies like Bord Gáis, ESB and Sky seem to operate the complete opposite by offering incentives rather than penalties for saving them money by using direct debit payments etc. Given that Eazy Pass says it has signed up at least 75,000 customers to its electronic payment service the service charge is netting them in the region of €1 million per annum.

When PriceWatch contacted Eazy Pass, its general manager Declan White said the €1.21 per month service charge had to be imposed to cover the cost of the electronic tags as well as background administration costs. He said the tags cost about €25 each and pointed out that if a two-car family opt for tags for both their cars, they only have to pay the service charge once.

"In some other markets, companies just charge for the tags; that's something we didn't want to do," White said. When it was pointed out an automated service should lead to lower wage costs, a saving that could cover the cost of the tags, he said there were "no real savings", as the Eazy Pass and the coin-operated tolling systems are run "in parallel", with staff required to man all booths.

He added that using the electronic system can save time. Apparently, the express lane can handle 900 cars an hour in full flight compared with half that number passing through the coin-operated booths.

Noel Fitzpatrick from Rush, Co Dublin wants to know why peanuts are so expensive at home when so little value seems to be placed on them abroad. "We are all familiar," he says, "with going off to other countries and being given free 'nibbles' of peanuts in bars. If they are so expensive, how can they be given away for free elsewhere?"