The previous government’s plans to bring in a kilometre tax on motoring cost the taxpayer €200m, according to research by the NRC on Monday.

Half the money was spent on research, analyses and reports, while the rest went on winning public acceptance of the system.
At one point, the transport ministry had hired in 100 people to work on the project, in addition to 50 civil servants.
The new government dropped the project and is running a few small experiments with rush-hour avoidance schemes.