Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 31:

In page 23, between lines 6 and 7, to insert the following:"(j) to encourage investment by new market entrants in vehicles and services and to issue new licences to ensure that investment is not diverted into the purchase of licences from incumbents.".

Advertently or inadvertently, the danger in what we are doing is that we will create a scarcity value for the licences the Minister of State mentioned in the last section. If one takes accounts of the estimates of Paul Gorecki of the ESRI, the way we have restricted entry since SI 250 of 2010 will create a scarcity value for licences. That means the investment is diverted to buying licences from incumbents. I share the Minister of State's view that the licences should have no value, but they will have a value because they will be scarce.

Taking account of the 2013 estimates from the National Transport Authority, there are 5,000 fewer people involved in the industry since its peak in 2008. We want to have an industry which has newcomers, not just incumbents who are always defending the status quo. In this branch of economics the incumbents are evil, while the new entrants are the heroes who keep an industry dynamic. There is far too much emphasis in the Bill on protecting the interests of the incumbents and keeping out new entrants. Today's finding from the ESRI that the burden of the recession has been overwhelmingly borne by young people is topical. Keeping new entrants out of a sector is very nice for the incumbents, as they do well out of it, but it puts the burden of the recession which everyone in the House is trying to correct on people who are outsiders in this insider-outsider labour market.

In many previous amendments we tried to move the Minister of State away from a system of quantity licensing, which is rigidly enforced. Paul Gorecki's estimate is that at the current pace it will be approximately 30 years before we have open entry again. That is preventing the growth of an industry which in the period after deregulation, as the Goodbody report showed, generated a substantial number of jobs. We seek some commitment from the Minister of State that he is not in favour of old-fashioned quantity licensing, as applied between 1978 and 2000 and which was overturned by decisions of the High Court, and that we will stop inventing new ways to keep out new entrants, which is what we have been doing on a macro scale in this country. It is something we will have to address across all Departments.

We have tabled an amendment to seek to have the Minister of State use the same formula suggested by the troika in regard to young doctors who wanted to take over patients in the general medical service, but he has rejected it. It is wrong if the person in charge of a sector controls right of entry in the interests of incumbents. We have had that situation since 2008 and it looks like it will continue for a very long time in the absence of a commitment from the Minister of State that he will take a more lenient view of new entrants, which means the burden of the adjustment will be borne by those outside the current licensing system.

Having new entrants is absolutely vital. In the past new entrants had to buy an existing licence at a time when a licence cost as much as six vehicles. We want transport to be provided; we do not want people to buy pieces of paper. The ingenuity of licence holders to devise ways to keep out new entrants and make a lot of money in selling licences under whatever guise their legal advisers tell them is a major obstacle.

We need to facilitate new entrants particularly if, as we all hope, the economy starts to grow again.

As the Minister of State will know, I am in favour of the outright revocation of SI 250 of 2010. I would be grateful if he would give some assurance that the Government has not shut down the sector for new entrants. That would be good news for younger people who have borne the brunt of the recession, as the ESRI said today. The incumbents are powerful and organised and have occupied buildings, including the regulator's office, and blockaded the airport. Parliament should not give in to that type of conduct but should recognise that every sector needs new entrants. They got a pretty raw deal under SI 250 of 2010 and, mostly, they got a pretty raw deal in the Bill and that is why I tabled my amendment.