Dáil debates

Wednesday, 23 November 2011

Road Transport Bill 2011: Second Stage (Resumed)

 

6:00 pm

Photo of Tom BarryTom Barry (Cork East, Fine Gael)

I welcome the opportunity to speak to the Bill. The amendments are welcome regarding the criterion to be someone of good repute and the national register to create a website of licensed operators.

In the business in which I operate I deal with road hauliers on a daily basis. During the years I have been struck by how hard road hauliers work. They are committed to their businesses and will provide a service at all costs. If it means working until the early hours of the morning, they will do it. They are vital to the economy and as such the model we have of smaller operators must be protected. It is a competitive industry, but it is also fragile. Road hauliers have lost out indirectly in the fall-out from the financial meltdown. The loss of our indigenous industries has hit the haulage industry very hard. Mallow is a pale shadow of its former self since the loss of the sugar beet industry. We might have complained about dirty lorries on the roads travelling into Mallow in the winter, but we would gladly take them back today. They created huge business for everyone who repaired them to the people who sold them to those employed to drive them.

The loss of quarry work has been difficult for the industry, but it is still going, as the people concerned are resilient. It is our job to get back indigenous industries, but we must look at the price of diesel which is a massive cost and making it hard to survive. The people concerned are defying the laws of gravity by offering lower rates as the price of diesel goes up, but this cannot continue. I was shocked to hear last night when speaking to a representative of the Whitegate oil refinery that a barrel of oil could be traded 500 times. The speculative value included in the price of diesel is shocking. People ask me how diesel and petrol can be the same price at the pumps and say it does not make sense. There is a speculative element that must be looked at which is crippling all of Europe. When people speculate in commodities, they should be made to put down money instead of there only being variants which the price may reach. They should have to put down real money, preferably 10% or 20% of the speculative price. That would result in real savings throughout Europe, not just in Ireland.

The problem is that the reduced rates mean we have older fleets of lorries on the roads and they are costly to maintain. People are caught because they bought the gear and have to pay the money back and they are being exploited to make runs at a loss. We should put in place a minimum price for haulage because one cannot operate a system that runs at a loss. It will cost in the long run. Young people will not enter the industry and larger operators will push aside smaller operators, which will be to our loss as a state.

I compliment the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. I dealt with it during the year on behalf of a driver who was looking for a licence. The man in question had dyslexia and the institute was very good in how it dealt with him. He was a tremendous operator, but his dyslexia was an impediment to him. We got him his licence and he is doing perfectly well.

I welcome the regulation dealing with serious convictions. We must make sure drivers do not have serious criminal records that might lead to serious incidents further down the road. The website will attract competition, while allowing us to identify legitimate road hauliers.

We have new roads, but the Harvest 2020 report on agriculture calls for milk production to be increased by 100% in County Cork. Most of the local roads in the county would not be capable of coping with the extra transport.

Road hauliers also face banking difficulties. They must buy diesel and operate overdrafts and be backed by the banks, the same as other small businesses. While we recognise the difficulties faced by road hauliers, we should promote and help them because they are a very important part of the economy.

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