I move amendment No. 130:
In page 84, line 41, after "purposes", to insert "of such hiring in the course".
This amendment concerns the granting of extended deferment for the payment of vehicle registration tax in respect of cars purchased by car-hire companies. The purpose of the amendment is to clarify that the concession is confined to cars used by such companies for car-hire purposes and does not cover, for example, company cars used by these companies.
I move amendment No. 131:
In page 85, before section 48, but in Chapter I, to insert the following new section:
"48.— The provisions of section 92 of the Finance Act, 1989 and the Disabled Drivers (Tax Concessions) Regulations, 1989 (S.I. No. 340 of 1989) shall be extended to that category of disabled persons who are without one hand or without one arm.".
This issue was something of a chestnut between Deputy Yates and the former Finance Minister, now the Taoiseach, Deputy Reynolds, some years ago when some concession was given as a result of points Deputy Yates made at that time. I had forgotten about it until recently when a constituent with one arm came to my clinic and raised the question of her disability and the regulation. That excited my curiosity and I looked into the matter. Statutory Instrument No. 340 of 1989 deals with this matter of the disabled drivers tax concessions. The core question is, who is disabled and what constitutes disability? The issue, for anyone who suffers such a disability, is a very serious one.
When I read the regulation my first reaction was to laugh out loud at the way it parsed and analysed disability. Disabled persons, from the point of view of the regulation which would operate a refund in respect of vehicles driven by disabled persons are:
(a) persons who are wholly or almost wholly without the use of both legs;
(b) persons wholly without the use of one of their legs and almost wholly without the use of the other leg such that they are severely restricted as to movement of their lower limbs;
(c) persons without both hands or without both arms;
(d) persons without one or both legs;
(e) persons having the medical condition of dwarfism and who have serious dificulties of movement of the lower limbs.
If one or both of one's legs are missing or crippled one qualifies. If both of one's hands or arms are missing one qualifies. But, if one of one's arms or hands is missing one does not qualify. I do not know what logic lies behind this but as I go through it I ask myself the question which must always come up on the revenue side, what is the likely cost? I do not know the answer. I do not know how many people who suffer the disability of missing one hand or one arm might feel they are entitled to be included in this list. But, given the way the tax system operates, this is not a situation in which a person can go to a tax consultant and invite a bit of avoidance engineering to be done on his or her behalf.
It is inconceivable that in order to avoid the tax we would convert ourselves into some kind of Islamic Republic and remove our hands or our arms in order to qualify for the tax. I can only suppose the people who would want to avail of this would be people who, in a bona fide way, either through a birth defect or through some accident, had lost an arm or a hand and who suffered a disability in consequence.
The condition has to be limited in its extent. Obviously, since people have accidents or may be born with birth defects, the population affected will vary over time, but it must be a very limited population. I do not understand the logic of the parsimonious parsing that went into the drafting of the regulation. This amendment seeks to extend Statutory Instrument No. 340 of 1989 to that category of disabled persons who are without one hand or one arm. It would take account of the person who visited my clinic, which was the cause of my curiosity in this. Given that it is not the kind of area where people are going to set out deliberately to avoid tax by incurring such profound disability I do not understand the parsimony involved in the definition as employed in 1989.
I am glad Deputy Cox has brought this forward because our experience in this area, limited as they might be in numbers, indicates the problem is even more complicated than Deputy Cox suggested. There is also a difficulty with people who are incapacitated from their neck down, as happened to one of my constituents after an agricultural accident. He now can only move his head. He will not qualify for exemption under the disabled drivers Act because he is unable to drive the car. No matter how much money he spends on adapting his car to allow him to use a lift to get into it or even if he purchases a van with a loading base at the back so that at least he can move out and be driven by somebody because he is unable to make any effort to drive the car, he is excluded not alone by that definition but by the definition for the purpose of tax exemption for special categories of cars.
There are many incapacitated people but in regard to the cost factor we should show some humanity in the application of this regulation. Some of the regulations Deputy Cox read out are embarrassing if you have to explain them to a constituent. It is embarrassing if you are with a person who does not have an arm and you hear some joke that they would give their right arm for this or right eye for that, but it is much more so when you meet somebody who is totally incapacitated and is excluded from benfits because they cannot drive the car themselves. If one is incapacitated and can adapt the mechanisms to allow one to drive one should benefit.
Will the Minister, and his advisers, look at this anomaly because it is treating people in special difficult situations, with disrespect and disregard for their needs. There is not much money involved but it would be a good gesture. If we employed the health board regulations under the Disabled Persons Maintenance Act it would give us some guidelines. The regulations should be more liberal than now in order to ensure fair play.
I congratulate Deputy Cox on tabling this amendment. I had a great deal of experience of this issue in 1989 when a person from County Tipperary who is teaching in Dublin and who had no arms, one leg and one artificial limb came to me. I was spokesperson for Health at the time. He had a thick file of letters from successive Ministers for Finance, Ministers for Health and the Taoiseach at the time, the former Deputy Haughey, all offering him sympathy but stating why the regulations could not be changed, that they would be open to abuse. The only way I could influence public opinion on the problem was to get an RTE camera crew to meet this man at the Merrion Street car park of Leinster House. The RTE camera man got into the car with him and filmed him. He changed gears with his mouth and he was able to operate the indicator with his shoulder. It was quite incredible to witness the acrobatics he performed.
I was astonished by the attitude of the Revenue Commissioners. It seems that most disabled drivers drive automatic cars because they cannot change gears and automatic cars do not come in a small car range, they come in a large type model. Therefore, the amount of duty relievable was quite high. One or two of these disabled drivers even had automatic Mercedes and BMWs. As far as the Revenue Commissioners were concerned, irrespective of the numbers involved, this meant the whole scheme was an abuse.
At that time if you had the use of anyone of your four limbs, you were excluded. In this country, once a problem is verbalised we often think it is solved. The present Taoiseach, as he is wont to do, grabbed the publicity, went on "the Gay Byrne Hour" and said he was going to change this situation, and, alleluia, it was all over. The change that was made still meant that if you have one good leg and one good arm you were excluded which is quite criminal in my view.
The attitude to this was quite extraordinary. When I was drafting amendments to this provision, during the period of the Tallaght strategy, our spokesperson had an avenue to change things, in terms of leverage or arm twisting, which is not available at present, in that there could have been an immediate general election if the Government did not agree. Discussions took place between Deputy Noonan and the Minister of the day, Deputy Reynolds. I put forward a series of amendments suggesting certification through a local authority, certification through a health board, a hospital consultant's letter, all of which, were systematically rejected as being unworkable, unacceptable and liable to open the floodgates to a monumental number of claims that would be impossible to finance.
I have no confidence in the advice given to the Minister on amendment No. 131. I ask him, without reservation, to accept the amendment because the quality of disabled people's lives is in direct proportion to their mobility. Their independence is absolutely defined by their mobility. A person cannot take up a job unless he or she can get to and from work. If they do not have a job, they do not have an income and then they are on a means-tested payment of disabled person's maintenance allowance. They are on a sliding scale of diminished quality of life.
Even if the Minister concedes this, the benefit will be miniscule compared to the costs they have to incur for adaptation of houses and other costs involved in gaining access to places of employment. This is a matter on which politicians must assert their authority. I do not know if the Minister has accepted any Opposition amendments. He has promised a review at some future date, and he has met some amendments with amendments he tabled himself. I would ask him to disregard the advice that this will open the floodgates and to try this for a year or two. He will see that genuinely disabled people would benefit greatly from this measure.
I would like to congratulate Deputy Cox on tabling this amendment. I have seen some norrendous cases in my constituency of East Galway. To put it crudely, as far as I can see, if the injured person can walk or hobble, under any circumstances, he or she is debarred from benefit. That is a non-medical explanation but that is the way I see it. I know a number of people, particularly in the farming sector, who have suffered horrendous injuries from tractors, combine harvesters and so on.
As Deputy Yates, said, the adaptation they have had to make to their lives is enormous. Can you imagine a farmer trying to farm with only one hand? It is almost impossible. The same is true if he has only one leg. That applies to any other occupation as well.
Everybody is sympathetic. I have spoken to official in the Revenue Commissioners, to people in the rehabilitation centre in Dún Laoghaire and others about this because anyone worth their salt will follow up such a case. Everybody is sympathetic, but sympathy does not solve anything; it is just sympathy.
I appeal to the Minister to take a chance on this issue, one way or the other. The Minister will have no trouble getting people within the system to say that the measure will be abused and, for all I know, maybe it would. I could not give a 100 per cent guarantee that it would not, but it would be better to err on the side of the disabled. If legislation had to be introduced later to cut out the most blatant attempts at subverting the whole measure, that could be done, but at least genuine people should be given a chance. They are certainly not getting it now.
I have several other examples that I could cite, but the Minister will find that, from the point of view of ordinary people, this proposal is something everybody would agree with. That is an important point.
I do not think a case should have to be made for something like this. The Minister knows that. What possible cost could this be to the Exchequer when you weigh up the cost, in human terms, of immobilising disabled people?
I have had dealings over the past 18 months with a severely handicapped person who is determined to be as mobile as possible and is being excluded from that possibility. It is a great personal cost and a great cost to our society. Attitudes to disabled persons have open up enormously over recent years. This amendment is a mere gesture to disabled people. I cannot imagine why it should not be accepted.
To cite an example that has been used, I do not know of anybody who has deliberately cut off an arm so as to avail of disability benefit. If anyone has done so, I would love to meet them because they must be pretty desperate.
I am aware of the case Deputy Yates referred to and what he said is absolutely true. I had dealings with the person concerned. It is quite amazing. That individual, on his own behalf and on behalf of others, is seeking another move on, not actually in this area, which I am seriously looking at. It is quite an extraordinary case. That case shows what can happen in many other cases. I do not want to say what we are actually pursuing. It is not in this area, but concerns an area that would be equally helpful.
In regard to the case made by Deputy Yates, there was an old scheme in operation which did not benefit many people. Following the debate in 1989, Department of Health and the medical appeals board drafted a scheme which was enacted at that time. People generally believe that that scheme is of substantial benefit to those who are eligible under it. That is the first point. Because they qualify, they get back their VAT in total, they get back their vehicle registration tax in total, they get the excise on their petrol and they get their road tax. It can be up to between £7,500 and £9,000.
The scheme was designed to assist the mobility of disabled persons. It does not and cannot extend to disabilities which have a limited impact on mobility. The difficulty is how do you define that. Quite frankly, I cannot define it. If a person is not able to move around or cannot travel by bus or by car, how do you decide that?
The cost of the present scheme in the current year is somewhere over £3.5 million. Clearly, a lot of people are covered by that scheme. At the time there were consultations about the regulations — Deputy Yates was involved in that debate and the Medical Appeals Board but they were limited. I suppose that is the way they wished to start off the scheme. The certification of whether a person is medically eligible is not made by Revenue but by the local health authorities. If they forward a scheme and if Revenue believe it is not eligible under the regulations — although a very reasonable attitude is taken by the Revenue Commissioners in these cases — and it is turned down, that is not the end of it. It goes back to the Medical Appeals Board, who assess the case. If they believe the regulations are being interpreted too inflexibly, they can adjudicate and Revenue have no say. Revenue must implement the decision of the Medical Appeals Board.
Since I came into the Department of Finance I have had a number of cases dealing with aspects different to the quite extraordinary individual case Deputy Yates spoke about. I have spoken to other individuals as well. By and large, the cases before the Department of Finance get through. I can think of only one that came within the definition of what Deputy Cox was talking about earlier. I do not want to go back on that because I find the findings almost upsetting. It is a terrible way to deal with ordinary people. I am not saying that Deputy Cox was right to spell it out. There is only one case I can think of that I thought was a hardship, but I have had other cases which, quite frankly, I find it equally hard to say no to. You get severe stroke cases that do not come within this. You might still have your two arms and your two legs but they may not be much good to you. That is the kind of case I was talking about. There are also MS sufferers. I have a personal friend who at the age of 19 years was hit by MS and not able to get from A to B. These people are not in this group. There are a number of these other cases which I have discussed both inside and outside the Department. I do not want to be seen to be giving a one-sided view. Other groups have lobbied and I have not taken much account of it. No matter what the system, you will have a cut-off point, with people feeling they are hard done by. In 1989 they believed they had done a good job on that.
Deputy Ferris outlined a particular case. I understand that in that case the disabled person would qualify as a passenger provided the car was adapted for the transport of the disabled person. You are probably familiar with many cases where the adaptation costs have to be 20 per cent of the tax exclusive price of the car. That operates for many people — they can actually get benefit as passengers although they cannot get benefit the other way around. Some time ago I initiated a review, not just of the cases put forward by Deputy Cox but of some of the others I mentioned as well. It was relatively quiet from 1989 to 1991, but a number of these cases have come up since then.
In the case Deputy Yates spoke about the individual drives a car literally with shoulders. The regulations were changed for that particular person.
He could walk.
We are talking about the same person. I am looking at it from another aspect. I have been making the argument to colleagues recently that, from the point of view of cost to the State, there is a big difference in the case of an individual who is in employment and one who is unemployed. I am just making the point that we should treat them differently. If you have such a person in employment and determined, as many of these people are, to succeed in spite of incredible odds, we should help them. If they decided just to give up, the State would have to assist them through grants and all sorts of wages. When they put themselves in employment admittedly they have these valuable concessions, such as the £8,000 or £9,000 a year. However, there is an argument for looking at the case of a person determined to try to have a house or flat, to work, have a car and follow a normal life, because they cannot get the same grants as a person who is not in employment.
That is one aspect to look at and then there are the other cases. Because this review is involved not just with revenue — it is the medical aspects we are looking at — I will not even start to try to interpret what is there, what is reasonable, what is below the line. I would have a cost interest in it. I take Deputy Connaughton's point I would be less vehement in arguing for a £1 million one way or other on this than I would be when we come to later items this evening, where I will say, "No surrender". I certainly would not be over happy about it.
I understand Deputy Richard Bruton has a great interest in this. I do not know whether he was on the review body, but he is forever pursuing it. He has an involvement through the committee or some aspect of it. I agreed when we had the review that it would be discussed at political level. Quite frankly, it is not the kind of thing I would be against, indeed I would almost welcome it. When we have the conclusions in reports we should discuss them before making changes because even though people might think otherwise I have humanity on some of these issues. This is clearly an issue we could look at in a humane way.
The Minister mentioned that perhaps we were overly critical of the Revenue Commissioners. That may well be because I fully understand the medical input on the other side but I am told by the Medical Appeals Board, to whom I spoke on several occasions, that their bed is made as well. They are specifically advised on what is permissible under the Act or what is not permissible. It obviously has to come from the Oireachtas, which must be very specific about it.
I have had arguements with my Revenue colleagues on lots of other issues but I would have to say on this one they do not give advice. The Revenue Commissioners are very definite in their view on this. The regulations are there.
The Minister has a hard heart.
In regard to many things, but on this one because I have experience from the Department of Finance on this. I have had a lot of dealings over the years, I used act for the Central Remedial Clinic in my Mater Hospital days with autistic children and other centres.
In the review, the Medical Appeals Board would say this is the regulation and this regulation is posted too tight. Those regulations are set and we have already instigated a review of them. Whatever arises from the review you will not get a position where all disability is gone and we are into the argument about mobility. That is still a difficult argument. Wherever you cut the line on this you will never win because you will not be able to satisfy all the cases that are involved.
Naturally, I will take up Deputy Cox's point and the case he has put, and I will take into account less pressing cases like the MS strokes and other ones which, quite frankly, I do not think I can do anything about. I want to be clear about that because I do not think you can be Santa Claus in all these cases, although you would like to be. I do not mind discussing this when there has been a review. That is as far as I can go. I will not fight all day over £500,000, I do not feel that way about it.
To close the issue, for my part since I raised it in citing the regulation, earlier, it was proper to put it on the record because I was astounded when I read it. The Minister attends European meetings of ECOFIN — the Economics and Finance Ministers — and when the Minister is wearing his economics hat he obviously understands the circular flow in the economy. There was a certain circular flow to part of the argument and I just want to observe that where the Minister says the Medical Appeals Board are given the maximum degree of latitude by the Revenue Commissioners to decide the grey cases, they are in respect of a very restrictive and specific set of regulations, so there is a circular flow to that.
I acknowledge what the Minister said and there is no point at issue at all between us on this, it really is not a technical issue. At the edge, where you are defining points, appeals go to someone and they are sorted out, but the nature of the current definition is profoundly parsimonious and given that there are some people with disabilities, where clearly they would not incur the disability to avoid a tax it is absolutely clear that the number the State would be exposed to accommodating is finite in that sense.
The Minister said there is a review. He described its complexities because it involves people outside his own Department. Could he take it out of this discussion in this Committee that we want some urgency injected into that and we would hear relatively quickly from him on the matter?
The only thing we can welcome is the fact that the Minister said he would review this and would have a humane look at it. The only reason that Revenue would object to this is that the existing scheme costs £3.5 million. I contend that that is based on the presumption that if there was not this scheme they would get £3.5 million. My argument is that if this incentive was not there it is quite likely that these people would not have gone to the expense of adapting cars or otherwise if they were not of some benefit. The State can calculate it at a loss but they would never have had the gain in the first place.
This brings me to the next point that we should welcome the fact that we lose revenue of £3.5 million on the basis that obviously this scheme has helped people to continue at work, to get out and about and do something. We should give every incentive to them to do that, but it would not be a loss situation. It is something we would never have gained in the first place if the incentive was not there.
Could I ask for a clarification of my constituent who is totally incapacitated? The Minister said he would benefit from 20 per cent. He cannot drive the car himself because he is paralysed from the neck down. When he adapts the car nobody else can get into it except the driver because of the machinery it contains. He is so incapacitated that he cannot do without a driver. Because he is not adapting it to drive it himself the Minister tells me he gets 20 per cent — 20 per cent of what?
On Deputy Ferris' point, that is precisely the way it operates. The car can be adapted for the person and the second person drives the car. That person can apply, as I have said, and qualify as a passenger provided the car is adapted for the transport of the person where the adaptation costs at least 20 per cent of the tax exclusive price. That person is not a driver and the car has been adapted for him, therefore, the concession can be got on that basis. If the Deputy wants to give us a case, yes, but certainly I have no doubt in that case the person would apply. I have already considered this matter so as soon as the review is over and before I do anything about it I will circulate the review to the Finance spokespersons for the parties and we can discuss it on that basis. I do not think there is an argument here.
With regard to what Deputy Cox asked me, we are not certain because Finance and Revenue have already made their input into the review. I gather it should be finished before the autumn.
I move amendment No. 132:
In page 86, before section 50, to insert the following new section:
"50.—Section 8 of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 1992, is hereby amended by the addition of the following subsection:
‘(1) Where a motor vehicle is imported and is unused or unusable, the date from which road tax is payable shall be such date from which the vehicle is used rather than the date of payment of Vehicle Registration Tax.'.".
This is a very straightforward amendment. When the legislation was framed last year for vehicle registration tax it stated that you had to pay road tax to your local authority — that is why the disc is on the window — from the time at which the car was imported. I have met people at my clinics who might have an unused car which they did not have on the road since they brought it in on 1 February, for whatever personal reasons. Maybe the car needed repair or was involved in a crash and was off the road, or they just did not want to use it. If on 1 July they wanted to tax it they had to pay road tax back to the date of importation. There was no flexibility for the local authority to show any discretion as to whether the road tax would be applicable or not from a given date. Therefore, this amendment states where a car is unused or unusable such road tax should not apply.
Recently I answered a parliamentary question which set out fully the reasons why we considered it inappropriate to make any legislative change to accommodate the type of circumstances outlined in the proposed amendments. In order to ensure that motorists have sufficient time following registration which to licence or tax a vehicle provision was made by way of a good defence mechanism that a motorist would not be penalised for the use of, driving or parking an unlicensed vehicle in a public place within seven working days of registration by the Revenue Commissioners. If it was over a weekend it would effectively be ten days. That is not unreasonable.
I withdraw the amendment because I want to have a debate on amendments Nos. 133 and 134. Where a car was in a crash, the logic breaks down if it is totally unusable.
The point is they do not have time.
The point is that if you have a car that is literally written off you still have to pay the road tax on it.
I want to comment on that also. There is a lot of merit in what is being said. I would like that to be checked again because it is only cars we have talked about there. Take heavier vehicles, lorries, buses or whatever a lot of those are brought into the country purely to be used for parts and now road tax is being sought for them.
If the car is a heap of scrap coming into the country for parts it should not be registered in the first place, so I do not see how that applies.
The humanity I had in the last case is gone. I know what will happen then, we will have 5,000 crashed cars a year coming in and they will all be non-registered.
