Ms Verona Murphy:

We have tried every which way to define what the blockage is.

We know that insurance is governed by the Central Bank. It is within the remit of the Department of Finance, which we know has had a report since 2012 that was never published. It could have had this committee set up much sooner. All we know is that under the EU regulation and the conundrum that causes in Irish legislation, we are precluded from accessing insurance on an Irish registration plate anywhere outside this country, which means that the insurer, underwriter and brokerage must be regulated here by the Central Bank. As I said, this means that the operator has no choice but to move their operation. They cannot simply insure their truck abroad. They must move it to another jurisdiction to be able to operate in a competitive sphere. Currently, I am operating against my own colleagues at twice their cost base. They are operating at half of my cost base. We flagged this two years ago. Ultimately, as a sector, we will become foreign direct investment and that leaves the consumer wide open to me as a haulier coming into the market and charging what I like because an Irish competitive sector will no longer exist.

We are looking for a meeting with the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport. If we were based in Brazil, we would probably have got it quickly but I am not sure if we are going to have a meeting. We have some very serious issues. We work off a five-point plan that we presented to the Minister when he held a meeting with us at the eleventh hour - an eleventh hour meeting during which he managed to reduce 8% of our income with the stroke of a pen. He reduced our loading capacity from 42 tonnes back down to 40 and yet he expects us to absorb increases in excise duties on fuel, possible toll increases due to VAT and 300% increases in insurance. I could go on. This is a catastrophe for the transport sector.