Sean Barrett (Independent)

I move amendment No. 7:

In page 10, subsection (2), line 20, after "licence" to insert the following:

"or that the vehicle has been hired from the holder of an operator's licence".

This amendment seeks to deal with the road passenger side. There has been a custom where a business is doing well and a person needs extra capacity, to lease or hire. In the passenger business they are called auxiliaries, a strange use of the word, given the history of auxiliaries in Ireland. As our Sinn Féin colleagues have left, they cannot enlighten us.

We see buses around the country displaying a sign indicating they are "on hire". It is a private sector service that leases vehicles at times when extra capacity is needed.

The section refers to the vehicle being for the time being "authorised" on the operator's licence. There has been a provision in the bus business to hire in capacity at times of peak demand and those vehicles would not be on the operator's licence, because they would be extra vehicles and hired from somebody else. However, practice has been that where the route is doing well, auxiliary services are brought in so that the vehicle gets home on time. I do not know what legal provision is made for auxiliary services in other contexts or how they came to be termed such, but they exist and are important, particularly for CIE companies which bring in significant capacity at times of peak demand. They are not their vehicles nor are they on their licences, but they are a significant and necessary part of bus business.