Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and should have welcomed him to the House as I fumbled through some papers. While I accept what the Minister of State has said, I greatly regret it because the picture every economist in the country can see is an attempt being made by the licenceholders who occupied buildings and closed off the airport. Moreover, the Department has caved in to give them what they wanted, namely, the restoration of the value of the plates. I gave the Minister his chance but no economist outside the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport believed this was not what he was doing and he now has confirmed it. Quality licensing means one does not restrict the number of people in the industry. I am surprised the Department has no definition of it, as it was given to it in the four court decisions. Another problem with this Bill is the regulatory impact assessment was completed approximately six weeks late and was never submitted to Members but was published on the Department's website. As it refers to neither the Goodbody report nor to the four court decisions, I believe the Department is making this up as it goes along. It is the old anti-competitive emphasis the Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport has always had, whereby it has kept people out of competition at airports and so on and this constitutes giving into the wrong kind of forces.

I will certainly refer this debate to the troika because we are supposed to reducing the cost of sheltered sector services in Ireland but this measure is creating the scarcity rents that now are being advertised every night in the Evening Herald and the Minister of State, either advertently or inadvertently, is supporting that. It is a sad day that this has happened at a time when we are trying to make the economy more competitive. I support the Minister of State's quality licensing but he is not willing to support the amendment on it. He is, alas, unveiled in his true colours as trying to restore the pre-2000 position in contravention of the four High Court decisions. It will cost someone a large amount of money and there is a queue in the Supreme Court but I have no doubt but that what is being attempted here today will be overturned in the courts because the Minister today is attempting to overturn four court decisions that were made before him. He is giving in to the pressure of incumbents, and already has, in making life so difficult for new entrants by imposing on them a vehicle cost that is 65% to 91% greater than that for incumbents, as well as a variable cost that is 27% higher than the incumbents. This is the kind of discrimination that directly contradicts Mr. Justice Roderick Murphy's judgment that people have a right to enter a sector for which they have the skills and training and the public has the right to the services of such persons. He also added that given that most of those who were being protected back in 2000 - before he overturned that which the Minister of State is attempting to reintroduce - were citizens of this State and that in a Single Market, most of those who were being kept out were from other jurisdictions, we probably were contravening European law as well. It certainly contravenes economic common sense.

I have drawn the attention of the House to what economists think of this Bill and what lawyers think of this Bill and will discuss this further. I believe it to be the role of the University Senators to bring their wisdom and that of their colleagues to this Chamber in order that the Legislature is not treated to a Minister seeking to overturn High Court decisions in the interests of people who occupy buildings and block off the airport, because that is what I perceive the legislation to be doing. That is the only explanation there is because I have gone through each of the Minister of State's objections and the reasons he did not like the new entrants and they are baseless. According to the Goodbody report, there is 96% approval on the part of public opinion for the emergence of so many new entrants into the sector. It is a sad day for Irish economic policy and in general that quantity licensing will be unveiled in all its ugliness in the rejection of this amendment.