Irish Drivers Association – Giving Irish Drivers A Voice        Irish Drivers Association – Giving Irish Drivers A Voice

Letter to Taoiseach (18th August 2006)

Dear Taoiseach,

We have written to you on a number of occasions in connection with various motoring issues, NCT, VRT etc.

We have little or no response from the Minister of Transport even though thousands of our members disagree with his judgment and his predecessors.

It is in our opinion that it is an insult to the people of this nation that with the amount of waste of public finances of this Minister and refusals to meet with this association and failure to implement remedial measures to recover this loss of finance, that this minister is protected for some reason by this Government to continue ‘ripping-off’ the Irish citizen by wasting public taxes with impunity.

We advised this Minister that a fairer system concerning NCT is outlined by the EU in Directive 96/96, Article 2, that in particular, garages which also repair vehicles are also entitled to perform a vehicle test, obviating the necessity for long journeys, waste of fuel, working days lost, damage to the environment, a choice to the citizen as this is a matter of public importance, etc.

We have submitted 10 changes to the NCT/Minister, none of which have been implemented nor appear to have been contemplated or taken on board and the citizen/motorist was not allowed to have any say whatsoever in relation to the setting up of this NCTs or any say in which items were to be tested etc.

A response was issued from his office stating that no useful purpose would be served by such a meeting with this association. We disagree. This arrogance is indicative of a Minister, Department and a Government ‘disconnected’ from the people. This could not possibly be construed as ‘Democracy’ and it is becoming nervous and disconcerting that a NANNY/Dictatorship/police state appears to be emerging. The Government have become so ‘disconnected’ from its people, blinded by greed to the point that we are concerned that the only value a citizen appears to have in this country seems to be in relation to how much money can be extracted from the citizen to satisfy an insatiable desire of greed and power by this Government. How much money is needed or is enough and for what purpose? We are fed up that the legitimate expectation of motorists and citizens are being unfulfilled by not spending the money where it is supposed to go. As a brief example, statistics show approximately 25% or less of road tax is spent on the roads indicating that either we are paying 4 times too much for the road or we are waiting 4 times longer for our roads to be brought up to an acceptable standard. This certainly should have happened before the NCT should have been initiated. The roads are literally a disgrace and wrecking our vehicles and this Government has the audacity to have cars in a roadworthy condition when the very roads themselves could hardly be classed as fit to drive on.

Consideration will be given by this association to withholding tax if these conditions are not rectified not just in this area but in many other areas particularly the unlawful imposition of VRT which in our opinion must be abolished as well as refunded to the citizen as this tax is clearly in breach of Article 25 of the Treaty of Rome and no statutory instrument can be enacted which repudiates this responsibility of this Government to comply with your Article 10 Treaty obligations nor deprive the citizens of this nation of the benefits which were bestowed upon them by acceding to the EU as result of a referendum which our forefathers participated in, in 1972. If our Treaty rights are to be ‘derogated’ from, then a referendum should and must be held to allow the citizen to decide for themselves, democratically, whether or not our Government can override our Treaty rights! NO Irish enactment of law is superior to EU law concerning Community matters, for example in relation to the Free Movement of Goods. How can movement of goods be FREE, when the Government impose VRT and VAT, not separately, but ‘cumulatively’. The imposition of tax destroys the concept of the FREE movement of goods.

It is our opinion that Minister Cullen and his colleagues will pull this Government down without our help. We intend to spearhead a campaign to ‘resurrect democracy’ and give ‘power back to the people’ by having a Government of the people, for the people and by the people because regretfully, we seem to have lost this ideal, the Government seem to have lost sight of this ideal with their arrogance, and we appear to have become lost in the illusion of ‘democracy’ when in reality, it has become a dictatorship and this will not be tolerated by this association which is growing rapidly.

We enclose a copy of our recent letter to Martin Cullen.

Is it possible that you would deal with this matter personally, and we would appreciate your help and cooperation on these important issues before they get out of hand and potentially become important election issues? We would appreciate an answer to our letter, rather than an ‘acknowledgement’, sooner, rather than ‘later’. Thank you for your attention.

Yours Faithfully,

……………………….
David Russell
National Secretary, Irish Drivers Association.
087 231 2250.

John Lernihan
National Chairman, Irish Drivers Association.
087 2509 123