Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)
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281. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the reason, despite the closure of many motor tax offices, 20,000 SPSV motor tax licence holders cannot tax their vehicles online; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [7689/17]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The overall objective of my Department's online motor tax service is that the facility to renew motor tax online should cover as wide a range of motor tax transactions as possible and the Department is always keen to explore the potential for including more 'complex' online applications for a small number of vehicles which include small public service vehicles.

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 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 small public service vehicles through the online motor tax service.

In this regard, as custodians of the National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF) and the online motor tax infrastructure, my Department is continuing to work closely with the National Transport Authority, who are the regulatory authority for the licensing and regulation of small public service vehicles, with a view to enabling these vehicles be taxed online.