A 13.5% increase in daily traffic volumes on one of the most controversial road schemes ever built here helped its operators generate €219,730 per week in operating profits last year.
New figures show that the M3 Motorway recorded €11.42m in operating profits for its private operator, Eurolink Motorway Operations (M3) Ltd last year.
Revenues at the firm last year decreased by 7% from €19.77m to €18.38m.
The directors of the company state that "traffic levels recovered well in 2021 having been previously impacted by Covid-19".
The 51km M3 that runs from Clonee to north of Kells was built at a cost of almost €1bn.
Pre-tax profits at the company decreased by 2% from €5.86m to €5.73m.
The company recorded the pre-tax profits after paying out €5.69m in finance costs.
The scheme was the largest infrastructure scheme delivered through a Public Private Partnership (PPP) at the time.
The controversial motorway was the subject of a series of protests as it runs near the ancient Hill of Tara, bypasses Dunshaughlin, Navan and Kells.
The firm's revenues are made up of road tolls and operational payments from Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) - last year, revenues from the company’s financial asset totalled €10.99m and operating cost income amounted to €7.39m.
The payments from TII include traffic guarantee payments that are paid if sufficient volumes of motorists don’t use the tolled route.
The guarantee was put in place due to the high cost of the route and due to it being a challenging project to deliver.
The company had bank loans of €71.97m at the end of last year compared to €93.39m at the start of the year.
The firm recorded post tax profits of €5.01m after paying out corporation tax of €718,000.
There are two toll plazas - one at Pace, between Dunshaughlin and Clonee, and one at Grange, between Navan and Kells.
The numbers employed by the operator of the route last year decreased from 24 to 23 with staff costs decreasing to €1.37m.
The directors of the firm state that traffic "is expected to increase further in the short to medium term".
- reporting by Gordon Deegan
