Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)
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202. To ask the Minister for Finance his views regarding VRT and its relationship with EU trade law; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14421/23]

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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VRT is an excise duty which is imposed, under Irish law, on the registration of a vehicle in the State. With effect from 1 January 1993, Section 132(1), Finance Act, 1992 introduced “a duty of excise, to be called vehicle registration tax” and the legislation stipulates that the tax “shall be charged, levied and paid ... on ... the registration of a vehicle”.

More than half of the other EU Member States operate similar vehicle registration taxes to Ireland’s VRT. Over the years, the European Court of Justice, in a number of opinions and rulings, has stated that the charging of a tax of this type is within the competence of a Member State provided that it does not breach Article 110 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, which provides that Member States cannot levy taxes that discriminate against imported goods or provide unfair protection to domestic goods. Ireland’s VRT regime respects this Treaty provision.

Ireland’s national legislation governing the operation of VRT refers to several specific pieces of EU legislation primarily relating to vehicle-technical matters, such as vehicle categories, definitions of technical terms, and conformity with EU type-approval law. In this regard, the VRT legislation uses the base of existing EU legislation on vehicle matters.