The Transport Minister Leo Varadkar's proposals to toll all of the M50 will be rightly seen as a "Dublin tax".

If he goes ahead with his plans to screw hard-pressed motorists for even more money, then he and his government colleagues will pay the price at the next general election.

Dublin's taxpayers and motorists, who are generally the same people, have been used and abused by the M50.

Gridlock

Not only did the NRA hand over €600m of our money to National Toll Roads to buy out its Westlink toll franchise to get rid of the queues which were reducing the capital's ring road to utter gridlock.

Now Varadkar has the gall to suggest that we will have to hand over even more money for the privilege of using the public highway to go about our lawful everyday business.

As things stand, only motorists who drive over the Westlink bridge pay a toll for using the M50.

Thanks to the NRA's disastrously-mistimed decision to pay the NRA €600m, motorists will be paying tolls of up to €3 in perpetuity every time they use the Westlink.

Now, as if to add insult to injury, Varadkar is proposing to put his hands in our pockets once again.

Speaking to an Oireachtas Committee earlier this week, Varadkar unveiled his plans for "multi-point" tolling on the M50.

This would see all motorists using the M50 hit for a toll, no matter how short their journey.

While Varadkar also proposed a number of other new tolls, including the Dundalk by-pass and the N20 between Mallow in Co Cork and Croom in Co Limerick (memo to Leo: build the road first), it is not difficult to see this latest cash grab for what it really is -- another 'Dublin tax'.

While the traffic volumes on the Dundalk by-pass and the new N20, whenever it's built, are likely to remain relatively modest, hundreds of thousands of hard-pressed Dublin commuters will have no choice but to pay these tolls as they travel to work or study every day of the week.

This is, no matter how it is dressed up, a 'Dublin tax'.

While Fianna Fail ministers who represented rural constituencies were never averse to hitting the residents of the capital in the pocket, this is the first time that a Fine Gael minister representing a Dublin constituency has tried to pull a similar trick.

Repent

Don't do it, Leo. Among those worst-hit will be tens of thousands of the minister's own Blanchardstown constituents who have to use the M50 to travel to work, school or hospital every day of the week.

They will be reminded of his 'Dublin tax' every time they travel on to the M50 and see even more of their hard-earned cash disappear into the NRA's coffers.

'Multi-point' tolling of the M50 probably seemed like a good idea to Varadkar when the plans were presented to him by his clever-clogs civil servants and those geniuses at the M50 who paid the NRA €600m.

Let me tell you minister that it looks very different out here in the real world.

Introduce 'multi-point' tolling in haste, minister, and you will repent at leisure after the next general election.

- Dan White