Bernard Durkan (Kildare North, Fine Gael)

I hope that you as a medical man have kept that in mind as well. The people on the other side of the House have forgotten about it entirely. They do not give two pins for the poor unfortunate motorist; all they want is the €4 billion that he has to give them and they have various ways of getting hold of it. They take it by way of VAT, including on tyres, excise duty, motor tax and fuel tax. I wonder why the Government Members are not ashamed and why they do not come into the House one day and say to the motorist, "We are very sorry, we have been taking from you for years and have given you nothing in return." Is it that the poor, unfortunate motorist is public enemy No. 1 and is there for the taking at all times?

I wish to make two other passing references. If the unfortunate motorist manages to pay all the taxation laid upon his head by the Government, and manages to avoid potholes, traffic jams, the Red Cow roundabout, the tunnel and eventually finds a parking place, the chances are he will be clamped. This is a very relevant reference to this Bill which is the Motor Vehicle (Duties and Licences) Bill 2004. After some considerable difficulty and having put down a series of parliamentary questions to find out exactly how much more money was burdened on the motorist's back other than the tyres, fuel and so forth, I finally received a truncated reply. Most replies from Government nowadays are in truncated form and we have to measure them up ourselves and try to merge them in such a way that they make some kind of sense. Otherwise we do not get the answer. No matter what I did, I could not get an answer about the tolls.

One day I was at the toll bridge and I counted the number of vehicles going through. It was not a very busy day but for some unknown reason, it showed up a far higher revenue than is readily and regularly available to the general public as accruing from this area. I have now come to the conclusion that the poor, unfortunate motorist, having again travelled the roads, hit the potholes, paid for the tyres, the petrol, the roads, and ignored——

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