Gardai get power to seize foreign cars

boardy

From the Independent today:

GARDAI are soon to be given the power to impound cars belonging to foreign nationals.

At present gardai cannot seize untaxed and uninsured vehicles if they are not registered in the State.

Transport Minister Martin Cullen announced yesterday that he would be introducing legislation to rectify this situation in the coming weeks.

Under the planned new laws, gardai will be able to impound any vehicles within the State, regardless of whether or not they are registered here, if they have no tax or insurance. The changes will allow gardai seize from foreign nationals living here and from those from across the border.

zuutroy

A further inch toward having a proper system!.......

magpie

Does this have to be Irish tax/insurance? Or are The Grundy going to be trained in how to recognise and verify insurance certificates from a variety of eastern european nations?

I can't help suspecting this has more to do with lost VRT income than road safety. I read a couple of pieces in the IT today which bandied about quite a lot of unverifiable information like "Foreign nationals are more likely to drink drive".

The Govt has always been quite adept at distracting from the real causes of road fatalities by coming up with new campaigns. This one is particularly ingenious as it taps into the latent racism of the average Irish punter.

Again without enforcement this is pretty much useless

ballooba

I was at an IT awards ceremony recently where the presenter was a politician. Chief Whip I think. He joked that they always implement the systems which take money off us first. i.e. Revenue generating systems.

Would one such system not be a register of foreign cars coming into and leaving our ports. Any car in the country longer than a fixed period gets impounded.

Gary ITR

zuutroy wrote:

A further inch toward having a proper system!.......

Still many miles to go

boardy

Some interesting points being raised.

The logistics of enforcement can seem overwhelming. How does a Guard know when a car came into this country? How do they track it? Should there be a leaveway period?

Is this a vote-catcher by the way? Is it being done because of public sentiment?

And what's the story if the car has been taxed and insured in the country of origin? Is this just a double tax on them?

My opinion is that if they can get their home insurance to include Ireland and if it's taxed already and the documentation is there to prove it, then they should be entitled to drive here legally.

spockety

They should have to abide by the same rules and regulations that everybody else does concerning VRT, and road tax. If they don't, the sooner they're off the road, the better.

fatboypee

enforcement is the key to this one, as per...

how many NI Reg cars do you see buzzin about ? Loads round here... nobody seems inclined to re-reg them and nobody checks as long as the tax is up to date, heck in my 'willage' alone theres one guy driving a french reg, another a German reg and several others (spain, portugal, poland, Czech to name but a few) most of these guys/gals I know are living and working here. I've seen 'em get waived on at checkpoints with annoying regularity and all of whom it has to be said will, if they have a non-irish licence be exempt from the penalty points system...

System ? Somebody said there was a system ? Where ? is it new ??

FBP.

MrPudding

boardy wrote:

How does a Guard know when a car came into this country? How do they track it?

Not that difficult* all vehicles coming off ferries get their reg plates entered into a database. The date of entry is noted as is the date of exit. Also on entry the driver must supply an address where there is a reasonable expectation that they can be contacted at. This could be extended whereby tax and insurance from the country of origin could be verified.

Then we give the Gardai radios or mobile phones. If they stop a car they can call in and check the reg.

*apart from the border with the north. If this kind of system was put in place it would have to be done in Larne as well otherwise people would start using Larne to get onto the island. Also, I am not sure what you would do with Nordie plates. Impound car if not registered?

MrP

magpie

Also, I am not sure what you would do with Nordie plates

Controlled explosion TBH

boardy

magpie wrote:

Controlled explosion TBH

Does that mean you are in the "the latent racism of the average Irish punter" club?

Lord Nikon

I know if I was driving in another country, after paying tax/insurance here, i would be strongly against paying insurance or tax in any other country.

If you where going on a holiday in France or England, do you think it's right to have to re-register your car just to drive in that country? No

To be honest, i would like to see every car that has no tax or insurance or NCT impounded indefinitely, on foreign plates or not. 20 euro for everyday the car is in the pound, and it's released straight away with prove of tax/insurance/NCT.

IDMUD

The guards don't know wtf regarding the rules of driving a foreign car here. IF they also get proper training of what the actual law says so that they don't wrongfully impound cars then I'm all for it.

rsta

boardy wrote:

From the Independent today:

GARDAI are soon to be given the power to impound cars belonging to foreign nationals.

At present gardai cannot seize untaxed and uninsured vehicles if they are not registered in the State.

Transport Minister Martin Cullen announced yesterday that he would be introducing legislation to rectify this situation in the coming weeks.

Under the planned new laws, gardai will be able to impound any vehicles within the State, regardless of whether or not they are registered here, if they have no tax or insurance. The changes will allow gardai seize from foreign nationals living here and from those from across the border.

Good, i hope they implement it soon, there are too many foreign nationals driving around witout insurance.
a lot of them are insured from their home countries but it only covers them for a short period overseas, say 45 days or something like that, and as most of them are living an working here they let their ins. expire and dont bother getting ins. here.
its not cool.

Our man in Havana

neuromancer wrote:

I know if I was driving in another country, after paying tax/insurance here, i would be strongly against paying insurance or tax in any other country.

If you where going on a holiday in France or England, do you think it's right to have to re-register your car just to drive in that country? No

To be honest, i would like to see every car that has no tax or insurance or NCT impounded indefinitely, on foreign plates or not. 20 euro for everyday the car is in the pound, and it's released straight away with prove of tax/insurance/NCT.

Try driving in Austria without an Austrian tax disc see how far you get. Or Hungary or Slovakia for that matter. Tourists must pay the road tax in these countries.

boardy

neuromancer wrote:

I know if I was driving in another country, after paying tax/insurance here, i would be strongly against paying insurance or tax in any other country.

Yes, as long as your insurance covers you in that country (and you can prove it to their law enforcement).

neuromancer wrote:

If you where going on a holiday in France or England, do you think it's right to have to re-register your car just to drive in that country?

No, but there should be a reasonable time limit. For example, if a migrant worker arrives from Poland with his car and is required to tax and insure his car here, then it would be unfair (after he paid these fees) if he changed his mind in a couple of weeks and decided that Ireland was not for him.

neuromancer wrote:

To be honest, i would like to see every car that has no tax or insurance or NCT impounded indefinitely, on foreign plates or not. 20 euro for everyday the car is in the pound, and it's released straight away with prove of tax/insurance/NCT.

That would definitely help to solve the problems with uninsured/untaxed drivers here.

magpie

Does that mean you are in the "the latent racism of the average Irish punter" club?

Fair criticism, though on a more serious note I read that the Guards are almost at full capacity for their available storage space for impounded vehicles. In other words if they start impounding more they're going to have to squash them or blow them up. Or possibly sell them, but I'm not sure of the legalities around this, i.e. how long they have to hold them etc.

lil-buttons

Ah no!
I was plannin on gettin my car in the north come June was hoping that I would get away with it !!
Bugger them anyways jus when I thought I would get away with speedin and all...no fair!!1

whiteboard

They already record the reg nos on some ferrys. I was tavelling Dub to Holyhead last week with irish ferries and we were approached by 2 security people one marked down the reg and the other asked for ID so they could put a name against the reg. Not a difficult thing to formalise this if it is already in place from a security point of view.

I have to agree that the sooner it is introduced and inforced the better. We (law abiding) are getting screwed from all directions for taxes which others just dont pay. An Irish neighbour of mine has been driving an english reg BMW here for the last 2 years without having to reregister it; they english tax disk on the window expired in Nov 04. As mentioed before how is this being insured?

boardy

magpie wrote:

Fair criticism, though on a more serious note I read that the Guards are almost at full capacity for their available storage space for impounded vehicles. In other words if they start impounding more they're going to have to squash them or blow them up. Or possibly sell them, but I'm not sure of the legalities around this, i.e. how long they have to hold them etc.

If the Guards are going to be serious about it then they will need extra resources e.g. new impounds, backup personnel (tow trucks) etc., and a way to legally streamline the process.

I think that there will be more bark than bite in this initiative.

MrPudding

magpie wrote:

Fair criticism, though on a more serious note I read that the Guards are almost at full capacity for their available storage space for impounded vehicles.

Damn. That's it then. If only we had a way of increasing the capacity for storing impouned cars. Surely there is something we could do?:rolleyes:

MrP

el tel

I find the suggestions regarding what to do with NI reg cars quite amusing.
All those people taking a militant stance should realise that there are numerous vehicles in the North that are Southern registered - tourists, students, workers etc. I don't think many Southern Irish people would appreciate it if their cars were impounded or had a 'controlled explosion' carried out (as suggested by Magpie).

Ratchet

rsta wrote:

Good, i hope they implement it soon, there are too many foreign nationals driving around witout insurance.
a lot of them are insured from their home countries but it only covers them for a short period overseas, say 45 days or something like that, and as most of them are living an working here they let their ins. expire and dont bother getting ins. here.
its not cool.

big pile of poo,

how do you know that they do not have insurance? I love the way people just speculate and have no clue what they talking about.

they care more about the car then you do and it is also compulsory to have insurance in their country, so if you do not renew insurance you will get chased by authorities (and you will have to sell the car to pay areas, unless is declared of the road(which means that you have return the reg plates)
Also many insurance companies over there allow them to drive abroad entire policy duration not like here something stupid like 30 days limit.

on the other note, I wouldn't like to be involved in accident with any these cars as getting insurance claim probably would take eternity.

i don't care about insurance that much but roadtax drives me mad. Not only doesn't go entirely to repair the roads and should be in the petrol price from day first. This will sort out all these big UK BMW. LV, LT plates and taxi drivers.

simple rule-- you use the road more you pay more.

Still will be very hard to seize some cars

michaelanthony

They've been impounding foreign cars for months.

Ratchet

michaelanthony wrote:

They've been impounding foreign cars for months.

yep , it's more PR from minister then anything else.

Pheonix park impound was full of LV cars

MercMad

The point is that WE pay road tax to be allowed to drive over here............so should everybody else................UNLESS they are on holidays, and that should be easy enough to prove !

Insurance-wise someone with Irish Insurance cannot drive in other parts of Europe indefinitely, so why should the reverse not be true. Foreign insurance companies are prevented from entering the Irish market for many reasons, one being that the cover given is not as comprehensive as we have. (Yeah we all know the REAL reason) Anyway that therefore means that insurance from another country doesn't cover drivers to the extent we'd like. Think about it, things are bad enough without trying to claim agaist a foreign insurance company !

This isn't racism, its equality. You drive here then you do as we do !

As far as tax goes thats trickier since some countries dont have any method to display whether or not the tax is current. Maybe they should ALL have to pay for 3 months tax and that way they would have to give a valid traceable address to post the disc to !

For UK or NI cars the tax disc is obvious !

MrPudding

MercMad wrote:

The point is that WE pay road tax to be allowed to drive over here............so should everybody else................UNLESS they are on holidays, and that should be easy enough to prove !

Tell that to all the Irish people living in the north not pay UK (cheaper!) road tax.

MercMad wrote:

Insurance-wise someone with Irish Insurance cannot drive in other parts of Europe indefinitely, so why should the reverse not be true.

Just because Irish insurance companies are thieving bastards that provide us with policies with reduced options compared to other European provider?

MercMad wrote:

Foreign insurance companies are prevented from entering the Irish market for many reasons, one being that the cover given is not as comprehensive as we have. (Yeah we all know the REAL reason) Anyway that therefore means that insurance from another country doesn't cover drivers to the extent we'd like. Think about it, things are bad enough without trying to claim agaist a foreign insurance company !

We all know the reason. Like you say claiming is potentially an absolute nightmare. But, rather than deciding on a blanket ban on foreign insurance I would prefer to see a set of standards that the policies need to adhere to. TBH I would prefer to see more competition to the few irish insurers we have and I don't mind where it comes from as long as the people are covered.

MercMad wrote:

As far as tax goes thats trickier since some countries dont have any method to display whether or not the tax is current. Maybe they should ALL have to pay for 3 months tax and that way they would have to give a valid traceable address to post the disc to !

For UK or NI cars the tax disc is obvious !

What needs to happen is the Irish authorites need to get their fingers out of their asses and start to contact other countries and work out cross border tax and isurance agreements. It should not be difficult to make it a requirement for drivers entering the country to have documentation from from their insurance company or road tax authority showing the validity of both and having it in English.

MrP

Seth Brundle

MercMad wrote:

As far as tax goes thats trickier since some countries dont have any method to display whether or not the tax is current. Maybe they should ALL have to pay for 3 months tax and that way they would have to give a valid traceable address to post the disc to !

The revenue's current system allows foreign cars into Ireland temporarily for up to 12 months without having to reregister and therefore tax/NCT the car.
What if a foreigner comes over here with a valid tax disc - should they be forced to tax their car again here?
The French (and possibly others) don't pay annual road tax. What would they display?

Alun

kbannon wrote:

The French (and possibly others) don't pay annual road tax. What would they display?

Not to mention the countries where, even though they do pay car tax, don't have to have their car festooned with stupid "discs" like here.

Seth Brundle

I think the discs idea is a good one and can't see why the UK for example doesn't make the displayng of insurance mandatory.
However, I think the revenue/local authorities could make a huge step forwards by implementing a system here similar to the SORN (Statutory Off Road Notification) in the UK.