Mr. Maurice Treacy:

Let me explain the timeframe around what happens with proposals in the European Union and that will answer the first part of Deputy Moynihan's question.

We had a Commission proposal in July last year and the first part of it has been discussed by the 27 member states at a working group in the past few months. The general approach element went to the Ministers' Council at the end of December 2012. That element of the proposal is now parked for the time being. The European Parliament will start in exactly the same position as the Council working group did, in other words it starts with the Commission proposals which were for the regulation that includes motorbikes and tractors. The European Parliament starts its discussion on that now. When the European Parliament gets to the same stage, the transport committee of the European Parliament will discuss exactly the same issues that the Council working group has discussed over the past three or four months.

When the European Parliament transport committee has reached a proposal on it, the matter goes to the European Parliament plenary session and they will take a similar position or their own position as the Council of Ministers would have taken last December. When that element of it is finished, the three parties then come together, the Commission, the Council and the Parliament, and they discuss the proposals at that stage. It is out of the proceedings at that stage that a final proposal comes that then must go back to the Transport Council of Ministers and then returns to the plenary session of the European Parliament. That is a long way of saying this will take time.

The Commission's proposal included tractors for roadworthiness purposes. A number of member states had difficulties about that and under the present wording, member states may exclude tractors that are used solely for agricultural work from the directive, if they so wish. The discretion rests with each member state. Let me emphasise that is the document, as it is now, and as it has been signed off by the meeting of the Transport Council of Ministers.