by Andrew Carey
andrew
HUNDREDS of people queued at Limerick’s city hall and county council headquarters on Monday to get their motor tax in order before expiry of the deadline for declaring vehicles off the road for those seeking exemption from payment of arrears.
From last Tuesday, vehicle owners are obliged to give advance notice to the motor tax office of their intention to take a car off the road for between three and 12 months. They had been allowed to retrospectively declare their vehicles off the road once the relevant form was stamped at a Garda station.
This meant that arrears would not have to be paid once Gardaí were satisfied of the declaration made by the owner.
The new measures are intended to free up Garda time and resources.
The Department of Transport has said there will be no extension of the deadline and the timeframe had been well flagged in recent months. Those making a false declaration of non-use could face fines of up to €4,000 or six months in prison.
A Council spokesperson said that although delays had been experienced, they had allocated additional resources in anticipation of an increase in numbers.
Irish Cattle and Sheep Farmers’ Association President Gabriel Gilmartin has called for the transition period into the new motor tax regime to be extended, to accommodate the huge volume of people seeking to use the service.
“Motor tax offices have been extremely busy for the past number of weeks with staff inundated by long queues of people anxious to get their tax sorted out. It is a significant change affecting very large numbers of motorists, so an extension until the end of October would be a sensible move”, he said.
