Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent)
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55. To ask the Minister for Finance the measures his Department is taking to ensure that diesel being sold at garages is tested as green diesel to protect motorists in this regard; the number of prosecutions of garage proprietors allegedly engaged in the sale of green diesel; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [35018/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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Diesel that is used in agricultural tractors and for certain other specified purposes is subject to a lower rate of excise duty and must contain prescribed markers, including a dye that gives it a green colouration, to distinguish it from diesel that may be used in motor vehicles. Garages and service stations may sell marked diesel provided that they are licensed to do so, in accordance with section 101, as amended, of the Finance Act 1999. I take it, therefore, that the Deputy is referring to the sale by such businesses of marked fuel from which the prescribed markers, including the green dye, have been removed illegally.

I am advised by the Revenue Commissioners, who are responsible for tackling fuel fraud, that action against illegal activities of this kind is a key priority for them. They undertake, on an ongoing basis, an extensive programme of compliance and enforcement actions to ensure adherence to the legal requirements governing the supply and sale of mineral oil and to allow action to be taken against fraud. Among the key elements of this programme is the carrying out of control and compliance inspections at critical points of the fuel supply chain, including visits to mineral oil traders to check records and to take samples of fuel for analysis.

A central purpose of the inspection visits made to the premises of mineral oils traders is to identify, through fuel sampling, any instances where laundered fuel (that is, fuel from which prescribed markers have been removed illegally) is being sold as road fuel in contravention of the law. This work is supported and facilitated by the requirement, introduced last April, that rebated fuel must contain, in addition to the existing markers, a new and more effective marking product that was identified as a result of a joint process conducted by the Revenue Commissioners in conjunction with HM Revenue and Customs in the UK.

There were two convictions in respect of the sale of laundered diesel in 2013 and four in 2014.