Caít Keane (Fine Gael)

After that intervention, I am going to speak about the very mundane but important matter of car clocking. Some Senators may laugh, but if they were to purchase a car, they might find it is among the one in five cars that have been clocked. What are we doing about this issue in Ireland? Under the existing online system, we could be doing a lot more about it and I ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport to consider taking action. Car clocking occurs most often in cars imported from the United Kingdom. The Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport could share the 8 million or more mileage readings recorded on its NCT database. When a change of ownership takes place, motor dealers use the Revenue online service which could be adapted to ensure mileage is recorded at this stage. When carrying out VRT readings, Revenue could also record the speedometer reading when an imported vehicle is being registered for the first time. These readings could be compared with the national mileage register in the United Kingdom and with one click of a button it would be possible to peruse the mileage readings for the cars available for sale in Ireland. I ask the Leader to forward these recommendations to the Minister. In addition to synchronising readings with the UK register, we could make significant savings if we were to devise a national register. It would also improve road safety because we would put an end to cars that have done more miles than their clocks indicate.