Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sharing time with Deputies Michael Healy-Rae and O'Donoghue.

I will bring the Minister on to Tipperary from "Clonakilty, God help us". A wonderful exposé was aired by RTÉ last week and I hope the Minister saw it because he is due to hold a Zoom meeting next week with Jobs for Tipp, March4Tipp and the chamber of commerce. I thank him for that. We want to do in Tipperary what happened in Clonakilty and we want him to assist us.

The M20 reaches from Limerick to Cork. Joe McGrath, the Tipperary county manager, put forward a proposal some years ago that I brought to the then Minister, Shane Ross. The proposal sought to extend the road from Limerick to Pallasgreen and on to Cahir. The M8 is there but it is underutilised. It would have saved €400 million and cut emissions, and while it would have added 20 minutes to the journey, it would have been a quicker way to get to Cork or to Dublin. It would have had linkage from the port of Foynes to Rosslare, which is so badly needed.

The other issue I have to ask the Minister relates to the new tariff on imported goods that have supposedly been repackaged. Cars are not repackaged but, unfortunately, they fall into this category. There were 18 lorries this morning in Dublin Port, with up to ten or 12 cars on them, all held up because the duty on the cars has to be paid at the point of entry. It should be paid when the vehicle registration tax, VRT, is paid at a VRT centre, where it is always paid. The traceability is there. Will the Minister please look at this? Drivers are being incarcerated for one day or perhaps 48 hours in their cabs at the ports if money is not in the account to pay for one car or if that money has not been credited properly by Revenue.

That is wrong. There is a problem with the Revenue Commissioners. It is trying to help at local level but the Ministers for Finance and Transport and the Secretary General must sort this out nationally. I ask the Minister to please sort out those issues. He might give me a written reply because he obviously does not have time today to sort that out. It is important that he deals with that last issue. I look forward to the meeting with him shortly in County Tipperary.

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