Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 1:

In page 13, between lines 1 and 2, to insert the following:?8. The Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government shall within six months publish an evaluation of the taxation of goods vehicles in paragraph 5 of the Schedule to the Act of 1952, as inserted by section 4, based on laden weight per axle to yield the equivalent revenues of taxation based on unladen weight per vehicle.?.

I welcome the Minister of State. My amendment seeks him to evaluate the matter. An evaluation is a very good idea and would do the country a lot of good and help the roads budget.

With regard to the six months stipulation, a lot of the research has been done so it would not be onerous. I would not impose such a burden on the Minister if it were so. An Foras Forbatha, an organisation well known to the Minister of State's officials, researched the matter a long while ago. An Foras Forbartha based its research on that done by the American Association of State Highway Officials, AASHO, in the United States and the road track costs studies in the United Kingdom. The research found that heavy goods vehicles account for about 15% of the capital cost of a road. One would not need as much sub-structure and one could have steeper hills and hollows if trucks did not use a road. The AASHO's study was based on old airport runways that were used for the mass transit of all sorts of vehicles. The findings proved that the surface would hardly ever wear out if a road was built properly and one just had cars on the road, which addresses the point made by Senator Landy.

The unladen weight system for heavy goods vehicles is out of date. Obviously the weight of a load has some impact. The number of axles is important because the weight compresses downwards. A small number of axles on a small piece of road will cause the potholes to which Senator Landy referred. Many axles will spread the weight over a wider area and will not cause potholes. The research showed that the problem is not juggernauts but the number of axles under a juggernaut. One of the UK studies showed that a 32 tonne vehicle with four axles only met 82% of its road user cost. If one adds a fifth axle with the same weight then it would not only meet its road allocated cost but also be 31% above it. Therefore, the savings are substantial.

My colleagues in the school of engineering also sent me some examples. They estimated that the permanent wear damage factor is reduced by 21% when one moves from five axles to six axles, there is 15% more carrying capacity and the road damage per tonne is reduced by 36%. I can also quote a Norwegian study and I shall supply all of the research to the Minister of State.

I understand that vehicles with more axles do not cause potholes and the engineers tell me that tandem axles are even better. We could reward those who have vehicles that do not cause potholes and should consider changing the system to achieve a revenue neutral outcome. I accept the wish of the Minister of State that any change should be revenue neutral, as this did not happen on a previous occasion.

We do not have a truck manufacturing business, however we could transmit a signal to importers to import a different kind of heavy goods vehicle that will not do so much damage to our roads. We could apply the principle that those who cause potholes pay for them, as an adjunct to the polluter pays principle.

In this amendment I ask the Minister to look at this and incorporate it in the system. As I said earlier the research is available and it is a task for the engineers in the Department to compile it and discussing it with the engineers I mentioned. It is not designed to reduce revenue, but it might reduce expenditure and get us better value from our roads budget.

The research is robust and has been around for a while. We might ask the Irish Academy of Engineering to examine it but I genuinely put forward this suggestion on the basis that it makes sense. It should assist the Minister in managing his budget and this would help us at a difficult time in the public finances. I genuinely believe this is a worthwhile suggestion but I ask the Minister of State to consider it and come back to us in time.