Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I believe we will be here next year and we can look at this matter again then. I have a Leap card and I am aware that it took years to make it happen. Now that I see how Leap cards are used, I understand why it took so long to make it available. Technology is now being made available to allow the Leap card to be used on more forms of public transport. It is now possible, for example, to put one's photo on the card to ensure that if it is lost, one can get it back. I am very much in favour of looking at measures in the tax code to incentivise more use of public transport.

I will give an example of the kind of difficulty we need to manage, which is the reason I cannot accept the amendment but am happy to look at further ideas in the year ahead in regard to it. Deputy Lawless made the point a moment ago that if we were to list the various providers in legislation, we could begin to make the relief available to some providers rather than others. From a tax policy point of view I cannot do that because what would then happen is those parking providers, for example a private sector company providing parking from a facility that is beside an Irish Rail train station – Deputy Lawless knows where this argument is going – the owner of that facility would then claim he or she is being disadvantaged by the tax relief.

Deputy Lawless referred to the legislation on the regulation of clamping companies. I introduced that legislation when I was Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport and I remember all of the challenges we had in terms of trying to define property and where clamping takes place. I assure the Deputy that if during the year he comes up with further ideas on how the matter can be addressed I will engage positively with him because I am open to such ideas. Perhaps one thing we could do arising out of this debate is to ascertain if we can find out how many commuters have access to parking at a reduced price because that might help us understand the potential scale of the opportunity to which the Deputy refers.

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