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

Letter to Taoiseach (18th Feb 2006)

Dear Taoiseach,

The Irish Drivers Association was formed in Clare 2 years ago with the objective of protecting the rights and opinions of Irish motorists. For too long the motorist has been ignored notwithstanding the billions of Euro we have contributed to the Irish Exchequer with little in return.

We are not against penalty points but the Minister appears to be engaging in a ‘penalty’ style mentality as a means of securing driver compliance in terms of road behaviour instead of promoting and spending funds on educational programmes to improve driver behaviour on our roads.

We are now presently 8000 members strong nationwide and growing weekly. The Minister’s ‘penalty’ style mentality is a means of extracting more revenue from an already hard pressed motorist. For example, there are 69 ways of getting points on one’s licence, the effect of which, in relation to the most minor offence, penalises the motorist three times, i.e. 2 penalty points attracts a fine of €80 and an increase in one’s insurance premium. Why should a motorist be penalised 3 times for the one ‘offence’? By this means the Government also wish to close off the Court system of due process, literally preventing a citizen from challenging the imposition of penalty points and/or the fine by doubling the penalty points on one’s licence if a motorist has the ‘audacity’ to challenge the ‘offence’ if one loses their case in court. Regretfully, it appears that the already burdened motorist, is simply another means to extract as much money from a citizen as possible. Hence the introduction of more and more penalty points.

The Drivers Association are concerned about the following:

The introduction of more penalty points concerning offences which the law already covers.

The rip off in VRT which is, in our opinion, in breach of Article 25 of the Treaty of Rome, and the Irish Government as a member state has an obligation under Article 10 to enforce their Treaty obligations. Again, here we have a system of the Irish Motorist being penalised unnecessarily by having our cars approximately 33% more expensive than in other member states and this ‘rip-off’ has continued unabated since the 1st.January 1973.

The ‘rip-off’ concerning NCT. This is a system designed to ‘rip-off’ unsuspecting Irish Citizens whose cars are being ‘failed’ for reasons unconnected with the vehicle’s safety or roadworthiness and when ‘challenged’ on reasons for failure, the NCT issue pathetic excuses and the appeal system is a joke.

The rip-off concerning motor taxation to the extent that approximately only 25% or less, of road tax is used on our roads so that we are either paying four times too much for the roads or waiting four times longer for the roads to be brought up to acceptable standards, a system whereby overpayments of road tax is not recognised nor refunded and a system whereby the motor tax office will not refund even if one has more than 3 months remaining on their road tax disc. Therefore the Government should give serious consideration to exploring the possibility of including the road tax in the petrol because of the many benefits which would flow from this, not least every citizen paying for the road in direct proportion to their use of the road, freeing up Garda time on the roads which in turn frees up Court time and eliminating discrimination against drivers of larger and/or smaller cc cars.

Tolls are another form of unnecessary tax. If a motorist has paid their road tax, why is it necessary to pay a toll or even a parking fee. This is tax upon tax upon tax, another aspect of rip-off motoring. The Government obtains approximately 63% excise duty on a litre of petrol. Why does the Government want this much tax on fuel. Why does the Government need this massive percentage and furthermore what is being done with it? Why is the road tax not contained in this tax? These taxes are deliberately being kept separate so as top create a system of double taxation is it not?

This Association has been refused a meeting with the Minister of Transport, who considered that such a meeting “ Would serve no useful purpose.” How does the Minister come to this conclusion on behalf of the Association or the Irish Motorist? We are supposed to be living and participating in a Democracy, not a Dictatorship and we are entitled to be heard and we have an expectation to be heard. After all, are the prospective political candidates going to listen to the people at Election time and most importantly – between election times at constituency level and by-elections.

The Association has met with Price Waterhouse Coopers in connect ion with the mid-term review of the NCT. This review went into the 10 year contract to protect the consumer, but to date the mid-term review has not been released one year after the proposed review. We are now 6 years into the contract. The purpose of the mid-term review was to check and see how this company (SGS) were performing. We are all aware that in many instances it has been a total rip-off of the consumer and unsatisfactory because of a monopoly situation. Whilst purporting to be performed for safety reasons, it has not contributed to increased safety standards or reduction in road accidents but is perceived by much of the public as a money-spinning exercise imposed on an already overburdened and overtaxed Irish motorist. It is our belief that PWC were contracted by the Dept. of Transport to set up the NCT and were then contracted 5 years later to do the mid-term review. It is our understanding that this represents a clear conflict of interest and this Government has failed to do anything about it. It is our belief that an investigation should now take place into SGS of Switzerland, PWC and the Dept. of Transport as the consumer and Irish motorist’s expectations have not been fulfilled.

We expect to be 20,000 strong by the next General Election and it is our intention that our voice on behalf of the motorist will be heard. These taxes are over burdensome and we wish this unwarranted burden to be alleviated by SUBSTANTIAL reductions in taxes.

We also as an Association wish to contribute our expertise and experience to the Government to exploring the possibility of reducing road deaths, improved driver behaviour and attitude and the issuing of driving licenses and many other related issues and for the Government to consult this Association in all matters of motoring.

Thank you Taoiseach, for taking the time to read our concerns and we look forward to hearing from you.

Yours Faithfully,

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

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