Eamonn Maloney (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I do not think I will need five minutes. I welcome the Bill, which is overdue. Some Members have criticised the Bill but I did not hear anything of any great substance which would make me change my mind about it. I may not agree with everything it contains but I do agree with the thrust of the Bill. Legislators have been extremely casual in the past on this issue. An equally casual approach to enforcement has given rise to the difficulties we are experiencing with regard to people either avoiding or evading motor tax. I agree, in principle, that such avoidance and evasion should be brought to an end.

One of the difficulties I have relates to the amount of time members of An Garda Síochána spend policing this issue. I refer, for example, to the fact that people are obliged to go to their local Garda stations in order to verify that their vehicles have been taken off the road. The time of gardaí should not be spent on work of this type because it has nothing to do with policing as I understand it. This duty should be taken away from gardaí.

Many points have been made in respect of end-of-life vehicles and I will not repeat them. This is, however, an extremely serious issue from an environmental perspective. I return to my initial point regarding out casual attitude. Irrespective of which part of Ireland one might be travelling, one can see on our back roads the evidence of our casual approach to end-of-life vehicles. We have not been sufficiently stringent in respect of this issue and that is one of the matters which the Bill addresses. One need only cite the figures from the relevant year which indicate that many thousands of vehicles suddenly disappeared off our roads. That should not be allowed and, as legislators, we should not tolerate it.

I take this opportunity to praise the very fine work done by the Oireachtas Library and Research Service in preparing the digest relating to the Bill before us. The work of the service is always extremely impressive and it is particularly so in the context of the material prepared in connection with the legislation.

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