The Court of Appeal has dismissed Eurolink Motorway Operation Limited’s appeal over the valuation of tolls on the M4 motorway. It held that the revenue share the company pays to Transport Infrastructure Ireland (TII) must not be deducted when calculating the tolls’ net annual value for rating purposes.
The appeal concerned two valuations set by the Commissioner of Valuation: €6.365 million for the Kildare tolls and €2.145 million for the Westmeath tolls. The Valuation Tribunal had confirmed both figures after hearing evidence over five days in early 2019. The High Court dismissed Eurolink’s case stated appeal in 2021, and the Court of Appeal has now dismissed its further appeal on the legal question.
Eurolink argued that the revenue share was not within its grasp because it had to pay it to TII under their public-private partnership agreement. It also argued that the payment was a statutory restriction on the tolls’ ability to generate profit, or an expense necessary to maintain the tolls as rateable property. The Commissioner opposed the appeal.
Delivering the judgment on 10 March 2023, Mr Justice Haughton said the rateable property was the tolls created by the toll scheme and bye-laws, rather than the terms of Eurolink’s agreement with TII. The agreement gave Eurolink the right to collect the tolls but did not create the tolls themselves. The court said the revenue share was a payment arising from the arrangement between the current occupier and TII, not an inherent feature of the tolls.
Applying the receipts and expenditure method, the court said gross receipts include all income reasonably able to be derived from occupation of the property. For the hypothetical occupier used in the statutory valuation, that meant the entirety of the tolls, with no deduction for the revenue share. The court also rejected the arguments that the payment was a statutory limit on what could be charged to the public or an expense required to keep the tolls in existence.
The court held that the High Court had correctly answered the case stated and dismissed the appeal. It proposed that TII receive its appeal costs, with the amount to be determined by a Legal Costs Adjudicator if the parties cannot agree. Either party could seek a different costs order within 10 days of electronic delivery; the judgment records that the proposed order would be made if no such request was received.