New road haulage president optimistic about Government

BUNRATTY-based Eoin Gavin is the new president of the Irish Road Haulage Association and this week he launched a broadside at the previous Government, saying it had ignored the industry.

Mr Gavin recently met with new Transport Minister Leo Varadkar and said he had seemed more receptive that the previous administration had been.
“He accepted we are the main stakeholders in transport. The last government closed the door in our faces, they didn’t want to know us. If you weren’t a builder or a developer, they didn’t want to know you. We struggled for the last 10 years to get any support for our industry. Directives came in from Europe and there was no consultation with our industry. With the building of the roads, there was no consultation on where rest stops should be. They said we didn’t need them. Simple things like that, they didn’t want to hear about them. They expect you to drive from Cork to Dublin without stopping. We highlighted these issues before the roads were even built,” Mr Gavin commented.
He said one of the main priorities for the body is getting a rebate scheme on fuel established, something he claims wouldn’t hit the State’s coffers. “We’ve come up with an idea that they can rebate essential users, like ourselves in haulage, at the end of the year. Most countries in Europe have a system in place for haulage because they realise they need road transport for their goods, there’s no other option. Basically at the moment, I have six or seven trucks going to Europe and I’m filling them all in Europe at the moment. It’s cheaper. There’s only six to eight cents in the price differential but every time one of my truck fills up it’s costing the Government €500 in duty. Off my company alone, they’re losing a few thousand every week. If they brought in this rebate, we’d start buying our fuel here and the local distributors would have more revenue, there’d be more employment and it would be tax neutral.”
Another major problem for the industry is the taxing of vehicles, which must be paid even if they are likely to be off the road for extended periods. “The problem with our vehicles is that we have to tax them for at least three months. With the current downturn particularly in construction, you might have work for a week and nothing else for two weeks. In the UK, it’s £600 sterling per annum to tax a truck and in Ireland it’s €3,000. They’re using it as a cash cow but what’s going to happen is that you’ll have foreign hauliers coming into the country that don’t contribute anything to the road network. They’ll pay a few tolls maybe but no road tax,” he said.
Mr Gavin said his own fuel bill is up by around €12,000 a month and that the increase in prices could put hopes of export-led growth at risk. “Our fuel costs have gone up by 50% which is crazy. Customers are paying extra for it but how far will they go. Today, I spoke to a company in Clare that want to move equipment to London. I gave them the prices and then they’re wondering if it’s worth their while exporting.”
Mr Gavin said he felt the meeting with the Transport Minister had been very positive and he is hoping to meet with Finance Minister Michael Noonan in the near future.