Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 1 May 2024
104. Deputy Alan Kelly asked the Minister for Transport if he plans to make it a criminal offence for anyone purchasing or selling a vehicle through car dealership or private sale to knowingly provide false and or misleading information when registering or de-registering ownership of a vehicle to driver and vehicle computer sales division. [19797/24]
View answerSection 12 of the Roads Act 1920 provides for the making of regulations requiring any person buying, selling, or otherwise acquiring or disposing of a vehicle to furnish such particulars as may be prescribed. Section 13 of the Act, as amended, provides that, if a person required by virtue of the Act to furnish particulars in connection with a change of registration of any vehicle, furnishes any particulars which, to his or her knowledge, are false or in any material respect misleading, he or she shall be liable to a fine not exceeding €1,269 or imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months.
My Department through the National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF) maintains a record of the ‘registered owners’ of motor vehicles. While the initial registration of the vehicle (including name and address details of the vehicle owner) is a matter for the Revenue Commissioners, my Department manages all subsequent change of ownership notifications. The change of ownership service has specific legislative requirements and has a number of service delivery channels – offline (by post) to my Department's offices in Shannon, online for approved motor dealers on the Department's website (www.motortrans.ie ) and at Local Authority motor tax offices (in person or by post).
Notwithstanding the above provisions regarding the furnishing of false particulars, my Department is committed to enhancing the process around the registration of vehicle ownership itself. In this regard, my Department has now developed a new service delivery channel for change of ownership. This online change of vehicle ownership service will enable private vehicle owners record vehicle sales on the NVDF. Private sales would represent up to 500,000 ownership changes per annum, and would in the main, be the ones processed though the postal service at my offices in Shannon, as referred to above. The new service will, for the first time, enable the buyer of the vehicle be identified and verified through their MyGovID account. That verified name will be recorded against the vehicle on the NVDF. The Road Vehicles (Registration and Licensing) (Amendment) Regulations, 1992 (S.I. No. 385/1992) as amended and the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005 (for the use of MyGovID) provide the legal basis for this service. The service, which will be available on my Department's online motor tax website, www.motortax.ie and on Gov.ie, is currently being tested and it is envisaged that it will be live in Q2 this year.
