Brendan Griffin (Kerry South, Fine Gael)
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911. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if he will introduce a system of one month short-term motor taxation for emigrants who return here for short periods and drive their own cars that were parked up in their garages while they were gone, as the current minimum period of three months is cost prohibitive for someone who may be home for just ten days and the State may actually be losing money as a result; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [37721/13]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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nister for the Environment, Community and Local Government (Mr. P. Hogan) I have no plans to ch ange the available options for payment of motor tax, which can currently be paid on an annual, half-yearly or quarterly basis.

Any changes to the incremental basis of payment of motor tax would have to be made equally available to all motorists. In so doing, a surcharge, similar to that currently applying to half-yearly and quarterly discs, would have to be applied to monthly discs to compensate for the increased cost of administration associated with the processing and issuing of potentially multiples of the current numbers of discs being issued.

In addition, the introduction of a monthly disc would have a negative impact on the flow of income to the Local Government Fund and consequently on grant allocations to local authorities from the Fund.