Locals in Fermoy, Co Cork, fear and loathe the traffic congestion their town has endured for decades. Located on the main route between Cork and Dublin, all the vehicles travelling north and south wind their way through the town and over the small crossing of the river Blackwater.
A second crossing of the river is planned, part of a new bypass for the town, to take away the seemingly endless line of vehicles that make a simple exercise like crossing the street virtually impossible.
It is a situation which could be replicated in many towns and villages throughout the State as the National Roads Authority gets its £4.7 billion road-building programme under way. Cities such as Waterford, with its single crossing of the Suir, Limerick, where a new crossing of the Shannon is required, and Dublin, where a new bridge over the Liffey at the Westlink is proposed, are all suffering the pains of congestion.
Virtually all the towns on the main routes to Galway, Limerick, Cork, Waterford and Dundalk are now due to be bypassed. The trouble is that the State intends to secure public/private partnerships to build all of the above routes, to be repaid by tolls.
The tolls have been set tentatively by the NRA at £1.10 per car for a "longish stretch" of motorway, such as the 35 km route between Kilcock and Kinnegad on the Dublin to Galway route. Longer stretches would cost £1.65 per car. The charges are inclusive of VAT. The highest toll for the largest lorries is £3.50 - excluding VAT, which the hauliers will have to pay and then claim back.
It is proposed that there will be two tolls on each of the Dublin to Galway, Limerick and Cork roads, and one on the Dublin to Dundalk route. A decision has not been finalised about the Dublin to Waterford road.
Last week, Mr Donal O'Loughlin, of the Fermoy Bypass Group, said traffic would continue to divert from the new Dublin/Cork road back into the town - and its small, but free, crossing of the Blackwater.
Mr O'Loughlin maintained no proper study of "toll avoiders" had been carried out. He pointed to European experience, which he said showed that in cases like this, where Fermoy is within commuting distance of Cork, up to 40 per cent of regular road users would not use the tolls. Mr O'Loughlin claimed the avoidance level was as high as 98 per cent in parts of Spain. He insisted his group was fully behind the bypass, but with tolls, the future was one of continuing congestion.
Last Thursday, Mr Gerry McMahon, of the Irish Road Haulage Association, said that his members would not use the new roads if tolls were imposed.
"Until the network is completed, the notion of imposing tolls on stretches of roads is a mistake and will do us no good," said Mr McMahon.
"They should build the whole network and then see what the effect on commerce is. My members would not be able to pass this charge on, the market is too competitive."
However, the NRA sees the charge as "reasonable" and claims the urgency driving the State's road-building programme dictates that private enterprise be involved. "Where there is private investment involved in building schemes like these, experience in the UK has shown there can be a saving of up to 15 per cent," claimed Mr Gerry Murphy of the authority's public/private partnership unit.
Mr Murphy disputed the figures for toll-avoidance, claiming that the authority's own research had shown a probable avoidance rate of about 12 per cent. However, he conceded that those in Fermoy who commute to Cork city for work may be affected by a charge aimed at road users using a much longer stretch of road.
The authority was looking closely at where to put the toll booths, he said, but "wherever you put the booths some local users will be affected".
Pressed as to why the State does not simply pay the contractors to build the roads, Mr Michael Tobin, of the NRA, said it was Government policy to employ public/private partnerships. "The Government has said to us that it will give us £3.7 billion to build roads, and we can raise another billion at least from private enterprise, and we have selected our schemes with that in mind. That is what we are doing." Mr Tobin added that he was confident the toll roads would be used when they were in place.
Tim O'Brien is Regional Development Correspondent of The Irish Times