RESPONSIBILITY FOR the re-registration of imported used vehicles and the collection of VRT due on them is to be passed from the Revenue Commissioners to Applus+, the company that carries out the NCT, in the months ahead.
Neither Applus+ nor Revenue would confirm a firm date for the changeover, but a Revenue spokeswoman said it should happen mid-year, after which point all used vehicles brought into the country will be examined before they are given Irish registrations.
There were 11,383 used car imports re-registered during the first three months of this year, the main bulk of them arriving from the UK.
Section 104 of the Finance Act 2010 gave Revenue the power to appoint a “competent person” to carry out pre-registrations on vehicles to ensure they comply with the VRT requirement.
“There will be no cost to the public for a pre-registration examination as the fee for this activity will be deducted from the Vehicle Registration Tax due,” a Revenue spokeswoman said.
Despite a current backlog in the NCT system a spokeswoman for Applus+ said that this will have no impact on the current NCT system as extra staff are to be drafted in for this purpose.
However, given that the finer details of how the new system will operate have not yet been finalised there is some confusion in the motor industry as to what the changeover will entail.
John Dennis of HB Dennis in Airside Motor Park in Swords, Co Dublin said he hopes the changes to the current system will ensure unscrupulous importers will no longer get away without having vehicles examined. However he expressed concern that the changeover could bring about delays.
“It could be more cumbersome and mean more administration . . . but we don’t know. We’ve heard nothing official, only word of mouth. I haven’t seen any draft documents or anything,” he said.
There are also fears, given the current backlog in waiting lists for the NCT, that Applus+ may be taking on more than they can cope with.
“My fear is that this is going to result in an increase in the number of people testing their cars in their centres, ringing up the same phone lines, dealing with the same people,” said a small, Clondalkin-based car importer. “Some of the centres just don’t have the physical capacity to actually take this on.”
Gerry Halloran, managing director of Higgins Motorpark in Galway and Henderson Motorpark in Sligo, was also of the opinion that Applus+ would have to ensure this didn’t impact on the VRT changeover given that “the NCT is up to its eyeballs at the moment”.
However, Mr Halloran welcomed changes which will mean that private importers will also have to put their cars through a pre-registration process.
“It will mean uniformity across the board. I’d agree with that because people are getting around the current system because they aren’t declaring properly,” he said.
David Byrne, managing director of Merlin Car Auctions, said he hoped the changes would result in a speeding up of the registration process. He noted that limited resources and the impact of industrial action across the public sector had been affecting the speed and efficiency of the system.
“A third party contractor will want to make the business work as efficiently as possible and speed and efficiency are badly needed in certain parts but we’ll also be hoping for a bit of innovation on the part of the new company,” he said.