Cathal Crowe (Clare, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Earlier this year, I visited the motor tax office in Shannon with the Minister of State, Deputy Chambers. It is in a deplorable state. There are basins and buckets in various parts of the corridor. There is water dripping down on some of the computer servers that house the national database for motor taxation. I do not think it is a very safe environment for the people who work in there. It is quite a miserable environment. It is cold and wet at the best of times. It is unsafe when water is dripping down on computers, workstations and the servers which, as I said, hold the national database. People were very disappointed to hear that unit 153 in the industrial estate in Shannon was being repurposed and given over the Department of Children, Equality, Disability, Integration and Youth because this has very much been earmarked for many years. I fear now the reconfiguration taking place in unit 153 means it can never be used again for any State use beyond accommodation. It is in the middle of an industrial estate. I do not think it is an ideal place at all to be accommodating people.

The motor taxation office is a national asset. It manages the whole system for the country. It needs to be better appropriated than where it is at the moment. I do not think Ennis is as viable an option as the report would suggest. It needs to be in Shannon and the Minister of State needs to find a suitable building in Shannon.

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