Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 14:

In page 56, between lines 3 and 4, to insert the following:

Amendment of section 6 of Finance Act 2019 (benefit-in-kind: emissions-based calculations)

19. The Finance Act 2019 is amended by the substitution of the following section for section 6: “Benefit-in-kind: emissions-based calculations

6. The new emission-based calculations shall not come into effect in 2023, and shall only be considered following the completion of an independent impact assessment of any proposed changes, which shall be laid before both houses of the Oireachtas for consideration, and which shall take into consideration the soaring fuel costs impacting the operation of all impacted transportation vehicles.”.

I did not get back to the committee room physically and am joining remotely. I want to move the Rural Independent Group’s amendment. This will have a huge impact on ordinary, decent people. We meet them every day of the week in our constituencies. They are mainly what we know as "commercial travellers". They are vital to their businesses and the interlink between the wholesale and the retail outlet in many areas. However, they cover many other areas as well. They are problem-solvers. If there are issues of poor stock, new stock or new anything, they are the human face of the company that many retailers – or many other businesses such as haulage, contracting or whatever – deal with.

This a huge imposition on them because many of the businesses are struggling at present. We see where the schemes have been introduced to try to help them. We should not penalise the drivers of the cars and small businesses for having diesel cars. Remember, we were all encouraged to go diesel some years ago. In addition, the costs and availability of new electric cars is a factor.

I have met several of these commercial travellers and I am sure the Chair has. They travel thousands of miles of week. They cover perhaps two provinces and sometimes 26 counties. Some go abroad and have to travel. The infrastructure is not anywhere near available to people. If they had the finances, the wherewithal and the will to change to electrical vehicles, the infrastructure is not there. We are calling for an impact analysis to be done and laid before the House. I tabled an amendment last week the Minister dismissed it out of hand.

We cannot just cut these people off to the mercy of the waves. As I said, these are valuable service. First of all, it is their job as drivers and it is their primary income. They work hard and it is a hard enough job. They travel around the country in all kinds of weather conditions. They are the interface between wholesale companies and bigger manufacturing companies, distributors and the many retail businesses. This just simply is rushed. It is not fair or equitable because they are mostly travelling in rural areas and go into urban areas as well. They cannot be returning home or leaving for work and be low on electricity with no charge point and have that pressure, unease and worry as they have to get home to families and wives. Most of them are involved in their communities and all the things that happen in local communities, whether it be sporting or otherwise.

There needs to be some more thought put into this - not just a green initiative that sounds good. It might sound good to someone in Dublin 4, but this is just not possible to do this in rural Ireland at this point in time and it will not be for some time because the infrastructure is not there, as I said. These valuable and well and highly trained employees have had avail of this benefit-in-kind because of the use of a company car or van in some cases for decades. All of a sudden trying to force them to go electric looks fine, glossy and nice, but it is just not doable.

I am appealing to the Minister of business to reconsider this and give them space. What will happen is that contact will be lost, the business will not be able to survive and we will have more collateral damage, such as loss of business and many hundreds of jobs of in rural Ireland in the retail and wholesale sectors. I am pleading that the Minister rethinks this and considers the plight of those male and female commercial travellers who are on the road, day and night. It is a risky enough job in all, as we have seen in the last month. They maintain the human face of many times beat companies with smaller retail. I am pleading. I am moving this amendment to have a report commissioned and laid before the Houses and give us some time to allow people to adjust.