John Kelly (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I support my colleague, Senator John Whelan, in his calls for an extension of time for the registration of off-the-road vehicles. I witnessed the difficulties in Roscommon. Yesterday morning, there was a queue three wide and 150 m long and that was the case until 3.30 p.m. Clearly, thousands of people were unable to register their vehicles yesterday. Many of them I spoke to were unable to acquire the necessary documentation to do that. In fairness to the Minister, I do not think he realised that there would be so much compliance coming forward over this period. It is unfair to say that everyone left this to the last minute and as a result we have these queues. That is untrue. I rang the motor tax office four weeks ago and I asked about my daughter's driving licence application. The people working there said it would be suspended and that they were not going to deal with any driving licences applications until after 30 April because, even at that time, they were snowed under with the workload involved in this project. I call on the Minister to consider whether it is required to bring in legislation at least to extend the timeframe for another month.