Madam, - A number of weeks ago increased charges for the new barrier-free tolling system on the M50 were published (and reported on in your paper). In the aftermath I find it amazing that these increased charges have not generated any comment in your Letters page.
I can only assume that most people simply failed to hear about them.
For those who don't know, there are three new proposed rates for the toll on cars. For those who use the current EasyPass system there will be a 10 cent (5 per cent) increase in the charge. For people who pre-register to pay, there will a 60 cent (32 per cent) increase in the charge and finally for those who are not registered there will a 110 cent (58 per cent) increase in the charge.
In effect this means that for those paying the highest rates, the charge for using the M50 will have increased from €1.30 to €3.00 (or over 130 per cent) since we converted to the euro six years ago. The road users of this country already have to bear the initial cost of introducing barrier free tolling in the form of the €600 million payment to NTR to buy out their toll contract and now we are to be gouged again with these increased charges. Yet all this information has come into the public domain without even the barest of comments from road users, road organisations or local politicians.
I have read the documentation on the NRA website about these new tolling arrangements and cannot find in them any justification as to why such large increases are necessary.
Are we to assume that they think the fact that we won't be delayed by up to an hour (at peak times) at the M50 toll bridge justifies them? Do they even care what we think because they know that they can get away with this?
I am calling on all road users to write to their local TDs and to various motoring organisations to protest and call for the scrapping of these unnecessary and outrageous increases in the M50 tolls.
Unless we stand up and stop such increases now we will probably reap the harvest of further increases in other tolls to use our road network. It is time we said "enough". - Yours, etc,
JIM WALSH, Greencastle Road, Dublin 17.