The Government is committed to removing the Westlink Toll Plaza as soon as possible, Taoiseach Bertie Ahern said tonight.
However, he admitted that it could take up to two years to go through all the legal procedures in the contract with National Toll Roads.
Speaking earlier, Labour leader Pat Rabbitte told the Dáil: "The hard-pressed motorist can expect no alleviation between now and 2008, despite the face that new trucks will spew onto the bridge from the Port Tunnel at the rate of 2,200 a day."
But Mr Ahern replied to TDs: "The Government is anxious to remove the Westlink plaza from the M50 as soon as possible. We would like to do that, not by doing away with tolling, but to move to electronic free-flow tolling on the road." He said the state was legally bound to honour the contract until 2020 with National Toll Roads.
"It will take a year to go through the procurement process, and then to go through all the technical arrangements. I personally believe that is an extremely long time but I am advised that that is the position so that National Roads Authority can get NTR out of the system.
"The Government will make the decision. They have views on lots of things in NRA that the Government doesn't go along with. In fact we went with quite a lot of them and got into plenty of hot water in the process.
"It would be convenient if people dealing with this 20 years ago foresaw that we were going to have the best boom that this country has ever dreamed of under this Government. But people couldn't see that.
"We're putting a billion euro into the upgrade, finishing the Naas Road, finishing the Port Tunnel and finding a new electronic way of allowing traffic go through quickly. If that's not good for the motorist, well I don't know what is."
PA