Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

There are references in section 3 to driving dangerously defective vehicles and parking vehicles in dangerous positions. All of us welcome the Bill because if we look around the country during the recession, there is an increasing number of cars with registration plates stretching far back in time. There was a time between 2000 and 2009 when garages found it difficult to shift cars that were more than two years old. Everybody wanted to have a new car. Most of the cars now on the road date back to 2006, 2007, 2008 and 2009 and the car industry is going through a difficult time. The Government scrappage scheme gave it a short new burst of life, but it is very flat again and I hope it can recover.

As it is becoming increasingly difficult for people to find the finance, there is a real concern that people may put off having their cars repaired. For example, there is a noticeable increase in the number of cars with defective lights. While driving at night, I have seen cars with headlights not correctly aligned, or with only one headlight, and being driven with the lights dimmed. This seems to suggest that because of financial constraints people are not paying as much attention to improving their cars as they would have done heretofore. That presents a problem, to which I would love to be able to offer a solution. The Bill will obviously be rigorously enforced, which I welcome, because no one should drive a defective vehicle that poses a danger to others. However, is there any thinking in the Government that might provide an incentive? I know everybody is asking the Minister for an incentive for one thing or another, yet there is no money available. Perhaps he might reflect on the consequences of the legislation and introduce some incentive to encourage people into garages to have their cars fixed. I know the NCT obliges them to do so, but that is only after a period of three years and I am not so sure that will address the problem to which I refer. The incentive I would like to see introduced might also help to create jobs in the motor industry. I am not sure exactly what incentive the Minister could introduce, but obviously it would have to have a financial base. Perhaps the greater minds in his Department who will be drawing up budgets line by line to be presented to the Minister for Finance might look at this issue to see if some incentive could be given to help the motor industry, and by extension, reduce the amount of defective vehicles on the road.