Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The Minister stated that, effectively, the carbon cost was €1.50 per tank of fuel of €60. He should multiply that tenfold or even more for a truck. It is wrong to say that that is all it is costing the person who fills the car because the reality is that there is a diesel rebate system that rebates the money back to the haulier but because the floor is not low enough, the haulier does not get it.

Therefore the €30 that the carbon adds to the haulier multiplied by 50 is €1,500 a year, and that will be passed back to the consumer. It is not correct to say that it is only €1.50. It is multiples of that. The difference with the haulier who has to be licensed, compliant and heavily regulated is that hauliers do not have alternatives. I am well aware of it, as is the Minister. Nobody disagrees with the green agenda. Everybody wants to make improvements but the reality is that those alternatives are not in place. If the Minister wants to save money and to clean up the air, there is no problem. There are 101 things that can be done that nobody ever looks at.

Representatives of Dublin Port came into the Joint Committee on Transport and Communications Networks yesterday. That company made €39 million last year and cannot put a system in place that allows the hauliers' operation to be productive. What happens in Dublin Port has ruined the air quality of Dublin and halved the hauliers' production. There is a barrier at the Dublin Port tunnel that causes 3,000 l of fuel a day to be emitted into Dublin's atmosphere, costing €1 per litre for the operators. That barrier is unnecessary. The trucks are free to go through the port tunnel. Any saving from the possibility that a car might not be charged is outrageous for the damage it is doing, and that has to be recognised. It would be a significant saving. We would not be paying the fines for our excessive emissions.

We should be doing everything that we can to remove every toll barrier in the country. It does not happen because Transport Infrastructure Ireland tied us up in contracts for 30 years with the toll operators and it is down to the toll operators to put in a fast lane for trucks that does not have a barrier. Instead, every haulier pays the price in the same way that they pay the price for the €39 million that is made by Dublin Port, which is not in any way beneficial to this country. We have shipping operators that are not registered in Ireland, and in that respect there is very little by way of tax coming in. With that €39 million, Dublin Port does not see fit to increase the capacity of the port. It is chock-a-block. Dublin Port is greedy. We have three large ports around the country that are not getting their portion of the business and this has to stop.

It is not fair to say that this stealth tax can be taken from the hauliers when there is no alternative. To protect the consumer, we must lower the floor for the diesel rebate scheme, which is actually the essential user scheme, and give this money to the hauliers. It is the only thing that Government gives them.

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