Ireland’s best-kept (and most annoying) secret

Ireland’s best-kept secret is a stretch of toll road through its capital city that was about to ensnare me again.

The M50 Dublin toll is located between Junction 6, Blanchardstown, and Junction 7, Lucan. And this is aptly named because the bit where they apparently demand payment is so invisible it is worthy of the name Lucan in every sense.

The last time I drove to the UK and back on the ferry, Holyhead-Dublin, I was caught in this ingenious money trap and vowed I would never fall for it again.

On that occasion, I drove at night off the ferry and into the tunnel leaving the harbour, where I dutifully tapped my card on a toll barrier. The next thing I knew, I tapped again at a second toll plaza, and, as I drove south, a few more after that. A month later, when my redirected mail got to me, I discovered I owed more than €50 in fines for not paying another toll I hadn’t seen.

Incredibly, there is a stretch of road between two toll gates with a dimly lit purple overhead sign bearing a relatively small-print website address, and if you could pull up in the middle lane you would see that this says you must pay by 8 p.m. the next day.

What is inevitably going to happen when anyone not from Dublin passes beneath this sign, and happens to notice it, is very clear. Because you’ve just tapped your bank card on a toll gate a few minutes earlier, and because you tap it again a few minutes later, you think you’ve paid. But you haven’t. After a day, an extra €3.50 is added to the original €3.70; after 14 days another €46; and after 56 days another €116.