PITY THE POOR IRISH MOTORIST

Nobody in authority in Ireland appears to have any sympathy for the Irish Motorist (IM). The IM is a much-maligned creature, blasted with venom from every angle. This, despite the fact that many of the people who are openly critical of IMs are in fact IMs themselves.

It is hard to find another country in the developed world that is as anti-car as Ireland.

From the word go the IM is screwed.

First of all, as he or she buys their new car they are fleeced with an illegal tax, known as Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT). This used to be call import duty, which was banned by the EU on the reasonable basis that we are, in effect, one trading entity of 27 countries and there was no need for this antiquated protection tax. Ireland, however, managed to get derogation from this for a period. When this expired, they hit upon the swindle of calling it VRT instead of import duties and ever since are getting away with it, despite the attentions of the watchdogs in Brussels.

Having endured this initial pain, the poor IM is faced with the very high road taxes that pertain in Ireland. Now that the means of calculating these has changed to emissions, the poor IM who has a high-powered car or jeep not alone faces higher taxes but also has to endure the wrath of the mad tree-hugging Greens.

Next up is insurance of said motorcar. Insurance for experienced drivers has fallen considerably since the early years of the decade when, post-9/11 it soared to outrageous levels as the gangsters that masquerade as insurance companies took the opportunity to increase cover on all risks by ridiculous sums.

However, for a young driver in Ireland, there still is this horrendous outlay for them to meet annually. For years, insurance companies convinced the public that they were losing money on motor cover for young drivers. It was only when one large underwriter accidently (no pun intended) broke out the profits it made from each risk category that we realised that in fact they were making massive profits in that sector. Even with the fall in motor insurance for older drivers, the IM pays a much higher premium than those in all of the of the other EU countries.

Once on the road the going gets really tough for the IM. Ireland has third world infrastructure and under the NDP, they are gradually upgrading the road network. Despite getting billions from the EU to do this, it seems that they cannot build 20 kilometres of motorway without putting a toll on it. The commuter who drives to and from Dublin each day is faced with anything up to eight tolls depending on where they work.

Along with the high fuel prices (out of which the Government extracts painful amounts of duty), the unfortunate IM sees their weekly wage decimated by the cost of getting to work.

It is not as though there is much alternative with public transport.

Despite a fortune spent on advertising telling us how they are “getting there”, Irish Rail remains a farcical dinosaur from the semi-state days. It offers the commuter very little by way of a reasonable alternative to driving their car to work. If everybody were suddenly to take the train to get to work tomorrow, there would be chaos. As it is, travelling with Irish Rail makes those over-crowded Indian trains seem very attractive.

Buses offer an alternative, particularly the private operators. Of course, the state owned Bus Eireann uses its muscle to squeeze out private competition. With them, it is a case of using taxpayer’s money to hammer the same taxpayers.

So, spare a thought today for the IM. It may shortly be an endangered species. As it is, the IM is a little-loved creature through no fault of its own.