Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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203. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to allow taxi drivers to pay the tax on their SPSV vehicle online. [26280/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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My Department's online motor tax service has proved very successful and has been enthusiastically received by the motoring public.  The overall objective is that the facility to renew motor tax online should cover as wide a range of motor tax transactions as possible.  The Department is always keen to develop the potential for facilitating more "complex" online applications for vehicles, including small public service vehicles, which currently cannot use this channel.  

Licensing authorities have an obligation under Article 3 of the Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing)(Amendment) Regulations 1992 to be satisfied that a vehicle is correctly taxed and the authority must have adequate documentation to support a claim for a particular rate of tax.  In order to avail of the small public service vehicle rate of tax, which currently at €95 annually is a concessionary rate, the owner is required to submit a current public service vehicle licence when applying for a motor tax disc. The public service vehicle licence is a paper based process and consequently it is currently not possible to facilitate the taxing of these vehicles through the online motor tax service. The Department is currently examining the feasibility of developing an electronic interface with the National Transport Authority, who are the regulatory authority for the licensing and regulation of small public service vehicles, to supply the necessary supporting evidence to enable these vehicles to be taxed online.

Dessie Ellis (Dublin North West, Sinn Fein)
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204. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport his plans to increase the number of places at which motor tax related to an SPSV vehicle can be paid on the south side of Dublin. [26281/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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Oversight of the operation of the local government system and implementation of policy in that regard, is a matter for my colleague, the Minister of the Environment, Community and Local Government and I have no role in this matter. However I understand that local service provision in the context of motor tax services is the responsibility of the local authority in question.