I move that the Bill be now read a Second Time.
The Bill is designed to implement the Financial Resolution agreed to by the Dáil on 9th December. As Deputies will recall, the Financial Resolution introduced a fresh definition of unladen weight for motor tax purposes. I do not not propose to go into detail again on the reasons for bringing in the Financial Resolution. To avoid any misconception, however, I should like to recall two points. First, it was designed to give effect to what had been the generally accepted interpretation of the previous definition up to recently. Secondly, it was necessary to deal with the matter as an urgent one to enable local authorities to deal with applications for licences for the present calendar year.
The definition of unladen weight, exactly as set out in the Financial Resolution, is contained in Sections 1 and 2 of the Bill. Various suggestions had been made for the modification of the definition, and these were all fully and carefully considered. It had been suggested during the discussions in the Dáil in December that the definition needed tightening to ensure that it would not catch such items as barrels of water. I gave the Dáil then the reasons why it is considered that such amendment is not necessary and I am happy to tell them that no difficulties have arisen on this score in connection with the licensing of goods vehicles for 1960 on the basis of the new definition. Licensing authorities have interpreted the definition reasonably and I do not think that vehicle owners can complain on that score.
Representations were also made that the definition should be modified so as to afford concessions to various classes of vehicle operator. These again were fully and, I may say, sympathetically considered, but I regret that it is not possible to meet them. The principle followed in the 1952 Act was to cut out special concessions of this type and to base the tax rate on the class of vehicle. This principle was followed to the extent that, by an extra-statutory arrangement, Stateowned vehicles were required to make a contribution to the Road Fund in the same way as other vehicles. Motor tax is a service charge, for the use of roads, and any concession given merely shifts the ultimate charge to other users. Despite strong complaints made at the time of the 1952 Act, road users on the whole have come to accept it as operating equitably and fairly in the matter of revenue for road works. The same principles have to be applied in this Bill. If a concession were given to one group, another would seek it, and so on, until eventually the whole purpose of the Bill was lost.
Sections 3 and 4 contain provisions relating to enforcement. They will enable the Garda and the local authorities to deal with the case where a vehicle is taxed at a certain weight and later used at a higher weight. The normal owner will see to it that the extra tax is paid before the higher weight is used. There will always be the occasional case of the man who seeks to evade the law. The present powers to deal with him are contained is the Road Traffic Act, 1933. For reasons which I shall mention later, these powers are defective, so far as motor taxation is concerned.
Under subsection (1) of Section 3, a member of the Garda Síochána will be empowered to require a person in charge of a vehicle which the Guard suspects to be infringing motor tax law, to bring the vehicle to an appointed weighbridge not more than five miles distant and there have its unladen weight checked Even if the vehicle is lightly laden, the Guard may make such a requirement. This provision is necessary to meet a case where a driver could claim the vehicle was laden even if it contained a sack or two of goods that could easily be removed and later replaced on it; at present a vehicle must be completely unladen before it can be required to be weighed for motor tax purposes.
Again, under existing law, a Guard can require a vehicle to be weighed for tax purposes only if it also infringes road traffic law on weights of vehicles. The weighbridge must be not more that two miles distant, and it must be a Road Traffic Act weighbridge, of which there are only about one per county. Section 4 of the Bill enables local authorities to "appoint" for motor tax purposes a number of weigh-bridges in or adjacent to their functional area, and this should get over the shortage of official Road Traffic Act weighbridges without putting local authorities to the expense of providing more.
Subsection (2) of Section 3 of the Bill will enable a local authority to call in a vehicle for reweighing after it has been taxed. A general power to do so is given in subparagraph (i) of paragraph (a) of the subsection. A local authority would use this power where they had reason to believe that a vehicle had been altered during the licensing period or where for some other good reason they felt the weight should be checked.
Subparagraph (ii) gives power to a local authority to call in a vehicle for weighing in the specific condition in which it was observed in use on a particular occasion. This could be used where a Guard had seen a vehicle used with additions not included in the unladen weight for tax purposes, but could not have it reweighed at the time for any one of the number of reasons, for example, there was no appointed weighbridge near enough, the vehicle was laden, and so on. I may state that local authorities had a certain power already in regulations made under the Roads Act, 1920, to call in a vehicle for reweighing. In view of the necessary extension of this power, it is considered desirable to put the whole matter in the Bill rather than in regulations.
Certain conditions are attached to the power to call in a vehicle for reweighing. Under subsection (6) of Section 3, at least seven days' notice must be given to the registered owner of the vehicle. Subsection (5) requires that where a reweighing is required of a vehicle in a specific condition observed in use, notice must be given either at the time it was observed or within 14 days. This is to ensure that the vehicle owner will be warned near enough to the occasion his vehicle was observed to warrant his remembering what "additions" were used with it.
Under Section 4, fees for the reweighing of vehicles will be met by the local authority, not by the vehicle owner. Local authorities' expenses will ultimately be met from the Road Fund.
The provisions regarding enforcement have been drafted to ensure that vehicle owners are given fair treatment. As a corollary, it is necessary to ensure that prosecutions are not made impossible through technical pleas, and certain provisions regarding onus of proof have been inserted. Nobody likes these, but they are inevitable at times and there are plenty of precedents for them in cases like this, where the facts concerned would be within the knowledge of the vehicle owner, would be in his interest to prove, and would be practically impossible for the State to prove or else involve undue expense. The provisions I mention are in subsection (5) of Section 2 and subsection (8) of Section 3.
A maximum penalty of £50 is provided in subsection (7) of Section 3 for failure to bring in a vehicle for reweighing. The existing penalty under the Road Traffic Act is £10, a figure which bears no relation to present day money values and rates of motor taxation.
Section 5 provides that the definition of unladen weight operates as from 1st January, 1960, in accordance with the Financial Resolution. The other provisions will come into force on the passing of the Bill.