Mr. Peadar Ward:

One of the problems, if one submits vehicles to a testing regime, is the lack of flexibility to take account of vehicles built 30, 40, 50, 60, 80 or 90 years ago. Some members of the Irish Veteran Vintage Club have experienced difficulties. A number of them had vintage cars for hire for weddings. For that purpose they had to be licensed as either hackneys or limousines and were required to be submitted for annual testing. The difficulty was that facilities were not in place to test them. The type of test proposed initially could not be undertaken. For example, one of the tests carried out at an NCT centre on a modern car is carried out on the body. If the same test was conducted on a vehicle such as a 1920s or 1930s Rolls Royce, it would simply break it. The facilities to carry out that type of test are not in place. Many of these trucks might be on the road twice or three times a year and the fourth time they are put on the road it is to take them to have a test carried out.

There is a lack of logic in doing this.

The other issue concerns whether tests could be abused. It would make absolutely no commercial sense to use an historic truck for commercial purposes. Irrespective of the cost of maintenance and fuel, nobody would use one as one would be losing money.

Deputy Michael Healy-Rae mentioned Morris Minors. About 20 years ago there were those who were starting to use a vehicle such as a Morris Minor as a second car because they might have been able to tax it cheaply. This practice has declined completely because it makes no commercial sense. One can buy a 15 year old Nissan, Toyota or Ford that is perfectly good, costs a lot less to run and is much more reliable than a 40 year old Morris Minor. What has happened in the economy has ruled out the practice for cars and it has certainly been ruled out as a possibility in the case of trucks.