Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 19:

In page 112, between lines 6 and 7, to insert the following:“(e) a person who holds a Community Licence within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 29 April 2004, and a business transporting its own goods;

(f) a person who holds a Community Licence within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 December 2004;”.

Although there is a group of amendments being taken, I want to speak specifically to amendment No. 19. I raised this issue in detail when I spoke on Second Stage and if the officials present today were here on that day, they will know what I was talking about and will hear it again to some extent. I was originally dealing with section 49 of the Bill, as initiated, and it has now become section 51 following the amendments on Committee Stage. Section 51 deals with the mineral tax rebate on auto diesel for haulage and bus operators, and I welcome this provision. However, the section has a number of unintended consequences and the two paragraphs of amendment No. 19 are designed to deal with these unintended consequences of what is otherwise a very good provision.

As I said, the section deals with haulage operators and I am not referring to the bus transport issue. The essence of the question is who is eligible for the fuel rebate, which comes back to the question of who is a qualified road transport operator. Section 51 defines a "qualifying road transport operator" as a person who holds a national road haulage operator’s licence or an equivalent EU licence, or a person who holds a national or international road passenger transport operator's licence or an equivalent EU licence.

They are the people who will benefit from this fuel rebate, which is what the Minister intended. However, there are people in the haulage business who, because they do not have one of these licences, do not qualify as road transport operators. This amendment aims to include these people. The first paragraph of the documentation by the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport to guide applicants for road haulage licences contains a section on who needs a road freight carrier's licence. It states that a licence is required when goods are carried for hire or reward. That is the essence. The documentation goes on to clarify matters. We are giving a fuel rebate but it is based on the definition coming from the Department. The officials in that Department probably understand more about this issue than staff in the Department of Finance, but I am sure the latter Department has checked it, and I am sure it consulted the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport before drafting section 49 when the Bill was originally published.

The documentation goes on to discuss the hire or reward issue. Hire or reward haulage arises when one is paid for carrying someone else's goods. If a person only does work on his or her own account - that is, carries his or her own goods in his or her own vehicles, driven by himself or herself or his or her employees - he or sh e does not need a carrier's licence. The Minister of State can see the anomaly right away. If a business is transporting its own product, it does not require a licence. If it does not have a haulier's licence, it does not qualify for the fuel rebate, even though it is in the transport business. The word "not" is heavily underlined in bold in the documentation from the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport. Many companies in the transport business do not have a road freight haulier's licence because the Department specifically says they do not need one if they are drawing their own goods. The second stage of this document lists a number of other people who are exempted and do not require a freight carrier's licence. The first page of the Department's documentation on the road haulier's licence lists a group of people who do not require a licence. Page 2 lists another group of people who are exempted from requiring a licence. Do not ask me the difference between the two, but the Department has listed them separately. I am using the Department's phraseology when I am speaking here today. It states that a number of categories of person carrying his or her own goods do not require a licence and then states the categories that are exempted, mainly in the agricultural area. It states that one is exempted from the requirement for a carrier's licence if one proposes to carry any of the following commodities in the State only: cattle, sheep, pigs or turf; milk to a creamery or a cream-separating station; milk containers to or from a creamery or cream-separating station; livestock by farmers for neighbours locally; and newly harvested wheat, oats or barley during the period 1 August to 30 November each year from a farm to a place of storage, assembly or processing. Again, the documentation underlines the fact that these categories are exempt. There seems to be an exemption from the requirement to have a road haulier's licence for people in the transport business who are collecting milk from farms, delivering it to creameries, delivering from creameries to processing plants, collecting grain and transporting animals from farms to marts and from farms to factories. There are quite a large group of people who are either not required to have a licence or exempted from having a licence, but because they do not have a licence, they cannot get this fuel rebate, even though they are as much a part of the transport business as everybody else. The purpose of this amendment is to include such persons in that category.

Many companies in the agricultural area have their own transport lorries and do not subcontract their haulage out to independent contractors. As a result, they do not have road haulage licences and, therefore, cannot avail of this rebate. I am asking the Minister to widen the definition of those eligible for this measure to include the two categories from the Department of Transport documentation to which I have just referred.

I welcome section 51 of the Bill. The legislation will force companies to contract out their transport. The tax rebate incentive can be granted to a subcontractor but not to a company carrying its own product. I accept that this is an unintended consequence. However, if two lorries are drawing from a factory, bakery or other business and one is owned by the company while the other is owned by a licensed haulier, it is most unfair that only one will be eligible for the fuel rebate. I ask that this be examined, which is the essence of the point I made here on Second Stage. People might find the wording of the amendment unusual but, having consulted with people in the industry, I found it was the only way we could come up with a formula of words to capture those who are exempt, primarily in the agricultural area. All of the products I have mentioned in the agricultural area are part of the food industry. Amendment No. 19 provides for the following people to be added to the list of those eligible: a person who holds a community licence within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 of the European Parliament and of the Council, a business transporting its own goods, and a person who holds a community licence within the meaning of Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005 of the European Parliament and of the Council. Regulation (EC) No. 853/2004 lays down specific hygiene rules for those who are carrying foodstuffs. The people about whom I am talking are in the business of carrying foodstuffs. Regulation (EC) No. 1/2005 deals with the protection of animals during transport. Those two regulations deal with the carrying of foodstuffs such as milk and grain, as well as livestock. People involved in that industry who are carrying those commodities cannot operate without complying with those regulations, and the fuel rebate should be extended to them.

The amendment also includes a reference to businesses transporting their own goods. The Minister will be aware of this. I am conscious of representations made and delegations received in the Department of Finance recently. There are many large employers that are doing their best to keep employment here and that have their own fleets of lorries on the road. Let us be clear: we are talking about lorries, not taxis or small trucks or vans. I do not know about double-axles or vehicles weighing 7.5 tonnes. We are talking about big lorries. I am conscious of one company that employs 400 people, whose representatives met with the Department of Finance to make the case that because it is running its own trucks - as it is trying to keep jobs in-house, look after the people who work for them and keep them in jobs - it cannot avail of this fuel rebate, whereas if it had subcontracted its transport business, sold off its trucks and asked an external haulier to handle transport for it on a contract basis, the haulier would get the fuel rebate because, as a licensed haulier, it would meet the definition.

The real difficulty is that the Government now putting small to medium-sized businesses that transport their own goods at a disadvantage compared with other businesses that use registered hauliers to transport their goods. Some of the bigger companies will have contracted out their transport and will get all the benefit, while the smaller businesses that have tried to keep transport functions in-house are put at a financial disadvantage. I sincerely ask the Minister to take into account of those people who in normal circumstances would have had a road haulage licence and would have been eligible for this fuel rebate but do not have it solely because the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has said that because they carry their own goods instead of somebody's else's they do not need a licence, because the haulier's licence is only for those who carry goods for hire and because that Department specifically exempted agricultural businesses carrying food and livestock. This could be because, traditionally, there is much transport in that area and the Department possibly felt that to include all of those businesses as registered hauliers would have been an undue cost burden on that industry.

It is now to their disadvantage. They are not allowed to benefit because they do not have a road haulage licence. The Minister of State could respond by suggesting these companies should apply for road haulage licences in order that they would be eligible for the fuel rebate. I consider this to be fraudulent taxation practice and think Revenue would take a very dim view of it. It would not be a valid approach to tell people who up to now have not had a licence to apply for one in order to receive the tax rebate. I would not expect that to be part of the Minister of State's response. A person who may not understand the intricacies of taxation law and the complications it might cause for a company taking that advice might be tempted to do so. However, it would not stand up in a court of law if Revenue were to take action.

I did not receive a response on these specific issues when I raised them on Second Stage. I may have taken a lot of time to complete my contribution, but I do not think my points were ventilated to this extent before. I ask the Minister of State to consider the case I have made.

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