Mr. Niall Cody:

Any repayment system is vulnerable to fraudulent repayments. People would be using diesel sourced in the North. A fuel launderer would launder Northern diesel, bring it across the Border and sell it to hauliers and couriers as clean diesel, not rebated diesel. It concerns us that if we are too successful compared to the North, people would source the rebated fuel in Northern Ireland, pay the 10 pence in excise duty there and sell it down here and we do not even get the excise on the marked fuel. This question comes up regularly and I remember chatting with my predecessor a couple of years ago about it. The system is very traditional and has been around forever and we could go to a rebate system with the technology that is available. It would be very straightforward for a business to do, even if it would be more difficult for home heating oil. There could be all sorts of improvements to fuel grants but the real challenge is that we would need to do it on both sides of the Border.