There is a slight amendment to the original draft report. I think you all have the amended one now. Since we sent out the draft report, Ireland, Denmark and the United Kingdom have been granted a further period of derogation so we have amended the report to allow for that. On page 4 you will get there the substance for our report. In particular, I should like to draw your attention to the fact that we did receive very considerable assistance from the Irish Road Haulage Association in this matter. They came before us and they were very knowledgeable indeed—very practical, sensible men. Regrettably, we did not have any trade union representations.
Harmonisation of Certain Social Legislation Relating to Road Transport.
In this situation everybody is ad idem that the Irish Road Haulage Association and the relevant Government Departments and trade unions are all together and we must derogate for as long as possible in this area.
Our main point is that we have settled by various Regulations——
What does the Government derogation allow to Ireland? Six months? A year?
Eight months.
This position means a whole new directive. Is this an amended one?
The entire social Regulations do not really suit any of the three new member states because we are all in a peripheral area. You even have the fact that the amount of time on board ferry is not readily acceptable as a rest period. That makes our transport much more costly. The difficulty about this is that it is an old Regulation which was in force before the Community was enlarged. I suppose all we can do is to get derogations on them. At the same time, our colleagues, especially our German ones, are adamant that the Regulation stays as it is. It is certainly one of those difficult ones. I travelled last year on all the ferry systems out of this country to see exactly the problems that our hauliers were experiencing and I had an opportunity of speaking with many of the drivers. In the social Regulations, as far as I can see, the ones who have not been asked for their opinions were the actual truck drivers. Some of them were self-employed—especially the Irish ones—and they want the opportunity of not just working more or less piece work, but they find it is not so easy to drive for a week at a time even with a second driver. It is easier to be on one's own and take the rest period. It is a pity their views were not taken.
The Irish Road Haulage Association largely represents the views of those self-employed road haulage people who were in here.
Fair enough.
We have got it here in our report.
They would represent that point of view.
They were all practical driving men themselves who were with us and they had no objection to the continental application of these Regulations. They indicated that it is not relevant to our domestic situation. The employers and trade unions and everybody seem to be in agreement.
The most serious part is the cost of transport which is considerable. One would have to view this regulation as if it were drafted without any regard to the Irish situation whatever.
Especially as our road haulage is primarily composed of self-employed people.
These Regulations applied domestically will increase all domestic hauliers' costs, whereas competitors coming in from outside to operate here would not be practically affected.
Quite, and that is because of the peripheral location. We will definitely have to resist this for a long time to come because the British are settling terms to suit themselves.
Paragraphs 1 to 7, inclusive, agreed to.
Draft Report agreed to.
Ordered : To report accordingly.