Mr. Gerard Moran:

My understanding is that we undertake extensive checking of fuel at various points. However, I will bear in mind the point raised by the Deputy and I will inquire into the precise nature of the checks we do at that point. There is no real incentive for the distributors, at that point, not to comply with the regulations. We have control staff checking the right proportions of dye are used. I am guessing that does not extend to checking every single truck going out but they are there to ensure marked fuel is marked and that all the fuels that go out are accounted for and the tax is paid on them. We undertake a programme of checks to ensure that happens.

On the issue of an advertising campaign, I hope the message is sufficiently out there now. We have had over 500 complaints. Some of them were received directly, while others were received via the Garda Síochána with which we have liaised in order to get a handle on all of the complaints. This is a well-established problem. There have been public meetings, and people are contacting us. I wish to repeat something. To provide some assurance to the Deputy and other members of the committee, we have done a great deal of testing, with numbers running at about 100 samples of petrol a month. From our current testing and the testing we have been carrying out for some time now, we have not been finding any evidence of any contamination.