The Government has given the go-ahead for an increase in the cost of tolls from Saturday next. Transport Infrastructure Ireland has stated that motorists are highly likely to suffer another increase in the cost of tolls within six months. That is absolutely outrageous. The Government is hiking up the cost of tolls during the most serious cost-of-living crisis in living memory. It is involved in highway robbery of citizens who are struggling just to get to work.

Commuters are already being hammered with increased prices in respect of cars and repair costs and are also suffering very significantly increased fuel prices due to excise and taxes at the moment. The Government hiked up the excise on petrol and diesel just three weeks ago. Now it plans to fleece commuters again in September and October with further excise increases. Nearly 50% of the cost of a litre of petrol or diesel is now tied up in taxes. According to the reply to a parliamentary question tabled by Aontú, the Government is now taking more in VAT on petrol and diesel than ever before. In the jaws of a cost-of-living crisis, the Government took in €2.3 billion on fuel taxes last year. These costs are a savage imposition on workers. In reality, they are a tax on work. They are a tax on the people who get up early and who keep this country going, Families who are struggling to put food on the table are now struggling to meet the cost of getting to work.

Tolls and fuel taxes are not uncontrolled costs. They are costs that fall within the Government's remit. It is incredible that the Government is actively increasing transportation inflation at the moment. The head of the Irish Road Haulage Association stated that the estimated changes just in the tolls could increase the burden by €500 per year for each truck. Ultimately, this cost is going to be borne by the consumer.

Someone travelling to work from my county of Meath could pass through six tolls on a return journey every day. At present, that person will pay approximately €2,000 a year on tolls. They do not have a rail option because the Government will not fund a rail line for the county. They do not have a direct bus service because the bus services are radial in nature and are notoriously unreliable.

The Government is claiming that tolls are out of its hands, but this is not true. The M50 is owned by the State. It takes in most of the tolls which are taken in annually. Those tolls are, in effect, a cash cow for the Government. They are a monument to maladministration on the part of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. These tolls have been paid for by the people over and over again. The M50 was built at a cost of €58 million. In the first year of operation, the company involved recouped all of its costs. The M50 was sold to the State for €600 million in 2007. In the first nine years, the Government took in €1.3 billion from tolls on the M50. The Government now has the neck to increase the tolls on the M50 again. I am calling on it to pause, to stop the increase in tolls across the country and to get rid of the M50 toll.

I thank Deputy Tóibín. There is no doubt that the past 18 months have been very challenging for people right across the country and in all walks of life, especially those who are on lower or fixed incomes. That is something the Government has been massively conscious of and to which we have responded very strongly-----

How can tolls be hiked up?

Please, Deputy, let the Minister respond.

-----in a way that I do not believe has been seen in any other country in Europe. The fact that we have been sensibly and effectively managing the economy has given us the platform, as has the situation with regard to our national finances, to be able to support people who are under great pressure at this time. Over the past year and a half, we have seen €12 billion, which equates to 4.5% of our national income, allocated to specific tax and expenditure measures to try to help households and businesses deal with rising costs. That is the wider backdrop to the past 18 months in the context of how the Government has worked to try to relieve the pressure that has undoubtedly been on our citizens over that period.

The Deputy specifically raised the issue of tolls. In December of last year, the Minister directed that officials in his Department would engage with Transport Infrastructure Ireland to develop options which might allow for the suspension of planned toll increases until the end of June this year.

That was too late.

Following this direction, Transport Infrastructure Ireland, TII, with all eight public-private partnership, PPP, companies which operate the tolls, achieved agreement on the suspension of these increases for the first six months of this year. As the agreed six-month period will expire on 1 July, the revised toll prices will apply from that date. The setting of tolls is a statutory function for TII, although there are some procedural differences when it comes to the two public roads, namely, the M50 and the Dublin Port tunnel, and the eight PPP roads. There is no formal consultation or consultative role for the Minister when it comes to tolls. It is a matter for TII, which has a statutory function in this regard. The board proposed toll increases for 2023 on the M50 and agreed the proposed increases on the eight PPP routes as well. Overall, in the context of tolls, given that these roads are run mainly by means of PPPs, there are contractual obligations involved. Those obligations are linked to inflation, and that is the situation that obtains.

In a more general context - and I have outlined the delay in respect of the six-month period relating to the tolls - the Government is very cognisant of the pressures that have been on our people over the past 18 months, particularly last winter. This is something we will consider again in the budget and in advance of next winter. We have introduced measures to try to support people during that period in order to relieve the economic pressure on them.

Ireland has the highest cost of electricity in the whole of Europe. The per-unit price is double the average being charged in Europe at the moment. The Minister is not correct in saying that the Government has been active in significantly reducing the cost of energy. There is no contractual obligation on the Government in the context of the M50. The M50 is owned by the State. The truth is that these tolls are being used as an ideological stick to put people off the roads in the same way that the hikes in excise and VAT on petrol and diesel are being used strategically to reduce the demand for fuel in this country. The Government is putting the Green Party’s ideology and strategy ahead of the needs of people. People are currently maxed out on overdrafts and loans. They are going to moneylenders and are not able to pay for their gas. Some 600,000 people are in poverty. At the same time, the Government is allowing for significant increases in tolls on roads it owns and that the people have paid for over and over again. The Government could say stop. Will it do so?

I have outlined the contractual situation with regard to tolls.

What about the M50?

There are certain constraints within which we must operate.

The Government has been massively cognisant of the financial pressures on families during the past 18 months. That is why, in the context of those financial pressures, we have intervened to provide support by means of a range of measures to homeowners. In the budget we introduced last year, there was an autumn double payment, a double payment of child benefit-----

The Government took more in VAT and excise than that.

-----a €400 lump-sum payment for fuel allowance, a €500 lump-sum payment to families receiving working family payment and those in receipt of disability allowance, blind pension and invalidity pension and €200 specifically for those living alone. We moved to reduce childcare costs by 25% and public transport fares by 20% in general and by 50% for young people. I could go on. There are many more supports, all of which are necessary given the pressure the public was under. The Government has been working to try to support them during a difficult period.