Mr. James Maguire:

The rental market has the same overheads as the ordinary guy. However, the driver will pay more money for it at the end of the day. I know of one operator that went out of business and left all of the cars there. There is a disaster coming up at the moment. If the nine-year rule is not extended to 15 years, more than 3,000 cars could be lost in January if drivers cannot get finance. A second-hand car could now cost between €26,000 and €30,000. If this not addressed, it will be a total disaster. The National Transport Authority, NTA, does not seem to want to listen to the plea. This should have been sorted out months ago. Give the lads that were out there having a bad time during Covid a bit of a break so they can get a few quid to build up a sort of a rapport with a credit union or a bank. One cannot force people to go out in January when their licence is gone to borrow that type of money, unless they have a record.