Donnchadh Ó Laoghaire (Cork South Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

From speaking to some people who live with the reality of life on the islands there are a couple of difficulties as things stand that need to be taken into account with this review, which needs to be very rigorous. First, maximum pricing and precisely what that means must be considered. The Department talks about maximum pricing and provides these tariffs. In practice that is very often treated as the price and an awful lot of people told me: "Sure, that is what the Department is telling us to charge." When I go back to the Department it says that is the maximum price, but in reality what is actually implemented is a bit different. The costs are very significant. I spoke to somebody recently who priced gravel for their home for €9 per tonne for a job a couple of years ago . By the time the actual freight was taken into account it ended up costing €41 per tonne. It has come down a bit since then but it is still very substantial.

The double VAT is significant as well. People pay VAT for something they purchase online. The courier will only bring the item as far as the pier so the person will have to pay for the carriage to the island and pay VAT on that again for the second time.

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