Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I hope I get a better response from the Minister than when the previous effort was made.

Olivia Mitchell (Dublin South, Fine Gael)
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Deputy Mattie McGrath would need to run it.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I am dealing with it now. It depends. This is the bureaucracy today, that one cannot have common sense prevail.

The Members of the House here and the Minister of State will be acutely aware of the financial strain commercial vehicle road tax is placing on Irish haulage operators. The introduction of the lorry road user levy, LRUL, in Northern Ireland has compounded the difficulties. Unless road tax in southern Ireland is overhauled as a matter of urgency, countless jobs will be lost.

I ask the Minister of State to examine this. He must know as well as I do that the playing field was not level even before this levy was introduced in Northern Ireland. The tax for a commercial lorry in this jurisdiction, which is paid to the county council or the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, is €3,500. The equivalent rate on the other side of the Border is €640. It is six times greater here. I cannot understand it for the life of me. A charge of €12 per trip is now being added. One could have to make several trips in a single day if one is going to and from Donegal. One would be straddling the Border as one goes up and down. It is a punitive tax on an industry that is already struggling.

We have a wonderful road haulage industry, in the main. In recent years, it has worked with the Road Safety Authority, the National Roads Authority, the Department and everybody else to streamline everything and bring it properly under the legal realm as it should be. It seems that this charge is what it is getting in return. It has been pleading for years - with this Government and with its predecessor, from which the Minister of State inherited this problem - for the introduction of a pay as you go road tax system like that used in other European countries. If hauliers could pay road tax in instalments, it would be some effort. Many hauliers I know are parked up for nine months of the year. They might get one or two days of work each week, but they still have to pay a punitive rate of tax. As a result of the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, many cross-Border committees and organisations are working together. In that context, it beggars belief that some kind of arrangement cannot be reached with the Northern Ireland authorities, if not the authorities in the UK as a whole, to ensure our people are not blindfolded. We would not place restrictors on the engines of their lorries to prevent them from going more than 15 mph. Requiring them to pay this punitive tax will have the exact same impact.

We are supposed to be in Europe as good Europeans, but we get kicked by the Europeans all the time with our finances and everything else. I do not believe this charge prevails in other parts of Europe. We implement things like this that are not implemented in other countries. It is only a land border, as we know. There is no sea. There is nothing between us when we drive up and down. I know it intimately. I know the difficulties they have. The punitive system of tax for commercial vehicles must be changed anyway. Countless hauliers I know have gone out of business in recent years, having tried their best to hang on. When hauliers get into trouble, Revenue is the most ferocious creditor they have to deal with. They get no hearing at all from the State. All they get is anguish. They are subjected to all kinds of checks from the traffic corps. I am fine with that. They try to keep their lorries up to the requisite standard for road safety. This is a punitive taxation system. I do not know what Ministers or senior officials allowed this levy to be passed into law without some kind of quid pro quoor some kind of arrangement for the hauliers here. We do not have jurisdiction up there, obviously. Are we asleep at the wheel? It is just madness to allow this infrastructure, which is already struggling, to be hit in such a punitive way.

I suggest that business and foreign direct investment will be lost when people start to encounter more expense in transporting goods north and south - to and from Larne, or from Donegal down to Dublin. People will not come in here because of the costs. The costs faced by road hauliers are already savage. I refer to the cost of fuel like white diesel, for example, or to the cost of road tax. Trucks have to be maintained and upgraded to an exceptionally high standard to keep them on the road. There are some very valuable haulage companies in my home county. They are on their knees. They are bewildered at the lack of engagement by the Ministers for the Environment, Community and Local Government and Transport, Tourism and Sport in this instance. We have been allowed to sleepwalk into this situation. They got adequate notice from many Members of this House and the Irish Road Haulage Association. They should have been better prepared. Some effort should have been made. It should be made now, even at the 11.9th hour.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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As the Deputy may be aware, the current rules on road user charges for heavy goods vehicles are set out in the 1999 Eurovignette directive on charging HGVs for the use of infrastructure. The directive sets out an EU framework for the levying of road charges on HGVs. It authorises member states, if they so wish, to levy user charges. Time-based charges can be imposed per day, week or year, and distance-based charges can be levied in the same way as road tolls. The objective of this framework is to encourage member states to use taxation and transport infrastructure charging in the most effective and fair manner to promote the user pays and polluter pays principles, which are enshrined in various EU treaties. Road charging ensures users contribute to the costs of maintaining the infrastructure. It can also be a source of revenue to help to develop new infrastructure and cleaner and more efficient modes of transport.

The UK Government announced plans to introduce a HGV road user charging scheme on 25 January 2012. At that time, the UK authorities pointed out that no charges were paid for any of the approximately 1.5 million trips to the UK made by foreign-registered HGVs each year. The object of the new levy is to provide that all HGVs, regardless of origin, that use UK roads will contribute to their cost. The levy, which was introduced by the HGV Road User Levy Act 2013, came into effect on 1 April last. The Deputy will know that while the levy applies to roads in Northern Ireland, the decision to introduce it rests with central government in the UK.

The Irish Government accepts that the UK Government is within its rights under EU legislation to introduce the levy. We have made representations to the UK authorities on numerous occasions. We have held a number of discussions with them with the aim of having certain significant sections of the Northern Ireland roads infrastructure treated as a special circumstance and exempted from the levy. As it is not possible under EU law to have an exemption that applies to just one member state, such an exemption would apply to all road users. Approximately 7 km of roads that criss-cross the Border between Northern Ireland and the Republic have been exempted from the levy to date. Despite robust representations on our part, the UK Minister has indicated in recent correspondence that he is not inclined to make provision for the exemption of additional Northern Ireland roads. The Irish Government is very unhappy with this position. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, who is responsible for this area, intends to ask the UK Minister to reconsider his decision. If we are to achieve a successful resolution to this issue, we need unity of purpose between the Irish Government and the Northern Ireland Executive. We are supported in this endeavour by our colleague, Mark Durkan, who is the Northern Ireland Minister of the Environment.

The Deputy might be aware that a working group has been established to examine the feasibility of introducing a similar pay as you go road tax scheme for HGVs in Ireland. There is a precedent for this in Europe. The Eurovignette directive allows a common road charging regime to be established where only one charge is applied and where those paying can use roads in a number of different countries. We should look to this example in seeking to establish a common road charging regime between the UK and Ireland. While there are many issues surrounding this - for example, it requires the support of the UK Government - a common regime could have some merit in light of our unique circumstances. The Minister, Deputy Varadkar, and his officials have begun initial discussions with their UK counterparts on this potential long-term solution. A common regime would be of more benefit to hauliers on either side of the Border than two different regimes that impose significant regulatory burdens on them.

The new levy imposes additional operating costs on Irish hauliers using Northern Ireland and UK roads. The prospect has been raised of some Irish haulage operators relocating their business to other jurisdictions, possibly taking associated jobs with them. There is no evidence that a significant number of operators are electing to do this. Operators who are willing to deal with the costs and regulatory requirements of becoming established and licensed in another jurisdiction are free to relocate if they wish to do so. Those who do will be subject to the cabotage regulations that apply to out-of-State operators with regard to their transport operations in Ireland, which will consequently be greatly restricted by regulations.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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The Minister of State's reply is disappointing. I know that efforts are being made. This charge is totally nonsensical. It was introduced on 1 April, which is April fools' day. I am personal friends with many hauliers, some of whom started off with the ass and box, a horse and car or a small Thames truck. A man in his 70s, Johnny Slattery, who is based in my own area outside Tipperary town, has expanded his business and now employs 90 people. People like him are frustrated because all they want to do is work, create and generate business, employ people and comply with all the regulations. These outstanding companies, which provide employment and pay huge taxes, are having to put up with this issue. As I said earlier, it is like being blindfolded or having a restrictor put on the engine that does not allow the truck to travel at more than 20 mph. It is the same thing. We just cannot compete. I know that younger men with younger families will relocate. Some of them have done so already. In England and some other European countries, one can buy one's tax for the day, pay for the lorry and do a day's work. In this country, one has to pay for 12 months. It is totally nonsensical. I have to say that the lunatics are running the asylum on this one.

We have derogations and so on from certain European charters. I am sick to the teeth of European charters because they are useless. The very same thing is happening with regard to the introduction of calendar farming for slurry spreading. They can spread it beside a railing in Northern Ireland, but we cannot spread it in the South. It is total and patent nonsense. I found out recently that successive Irish Governments, the IFA and others, have not even looked for a derogation on that. We are great at implementing European directives. We are even better at putting directives on top of them and adding more to them to keep all our mandarins in the Departments busy. It is time some of these mandarins were sent out on the road. They should go out to the haulage companies to see how hard it is for them to make a living while paying for diesel and maintenance, the wages, the VAT, the PRSI and the insurance. They are barely existing as they try to survive this dark recession.

It is time we took more robust action to defend our ratepayers and business people instead of smothering and choking them with European directives, fuel levies, carbon taxes and bureaucracy. It is happening across the board. It is patent nonsense and we are not fit to be here if we cannot change it.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I thank the Deputy, my fellow Tipperary man, for the eloquent speech on many different topics. We all accept we are in a difficult situation from a geographical perspective, given what the UK Government has planned and is doing. We acknowledge the need for a common road charging regime to be established, where only one charge is applied but persons paying can use roads in a number of different countries. While we are looking to establish a common road charging regime between the UK and Ireland, several groups must come to the table, including the UK Government.

Everything is being done to help the hauliers on the issue. I have met the hauliers in our county and have brought them here to meet the departmental officials and discuss this and other issues. I know the employment they bring and the SME nature of what they do. I have relations in the business and know exactly what they are going through and the difficulties. It needs a collective approach and everything is being done. We need to reach a point with the UK Government where we can create a regime which creates a form of equality; otherwise, there will be a race to the bottom regarding these charges, which would be unacceptable.

As a former MEP the Deputy referred to several regulations and the red tape which results from them. The Deputy was a member of the Government that brought in most of the regulations and ensured, in some cases, that the most extreme interpretations of these regulations were implemented.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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It is patent nonsense.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Deputy should remember this when he makes his contributions.

Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)
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I do remember.

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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While he may have acknowledged he was wrong to do so, in many cases he supported them.