Niamh Smyth (Cavan-Monaghan, Fianna Fail)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

16. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the proposals he is working on to assist the Irish haulage industry to reduce its costs as fuel prices continue to soar; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [55396/22]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The Government recognises the important role the haulage sector plays in supporting the economy and is fully aware of cost pressures on haulage businesses arising from high fuel prices.

Since March 2022, the Government has put in place several measures to help ease these cost pressures including a VAT inclusive excise duty reduction of 15 cent per litre of diesel and 20 cent per litre on petrol with a further reduction of 1 cent per litre applied from 1 April. These reductions were due to expire on 12 October 2022 but were extended in Budget 2023 to 28 February 2023.

The rising cost of fuel has been further recognised by the Government through the reduction of the National Oil Reserves Agency (NORA) Levy to €0.001 in order to offset the impact of a planned Carbon Tax increase and the Revenue Diesel Rebate Scheme (‘DRS’) also remains available to licensed haulage operators in respect of vehicles over 7.5 tonnes.

In addition, on 15 March 2022, the Government introduced the Licensed Haulage Emergency Support Scheme. There was good uptake of the scheme, with over €15.6 million paid out to 3,080 operators (approx. 80% of licensed operators).

It should be noted that the causes of the current fuel price pressures are not within the control of Government and are being directly influenced by external factors, including the Ukraine crisis. Unfortunately, it isn’t possible to fully insulate citizens and businesses from the impact of these fuel price increases and I would encourage all businesses to adopt a fair and reasonable approach to the sharing of increased costs at this time.

We will continue to monitor the evolution of fuel prices in the period ahead and we remain engaged on an ongoing basis with the sectoral representative bodies.