Leitrim haulier- 'Your cup of coffee, the shoes on your feet, everything comes on the back of a truck'

A Leitrim haulier has said that haulier companies will need the government to step in and do what they can to reduce costs for haulage companies.

Gerry McMorrow, who is transport director of McMorrow Haulage in Dowra, said that the government will need to step in if haulage companies are to survive the latest crisis caused by conflict in the Middle East. 

He was speaking after Deputy Vice President of the Irish Road Haulage Association (IRHA), Eugene Drennan, called on government to suspend the carbon tax levy on diesel, as fuel prices continue to soar at the pumps.

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Mr McMorrow told the Leitrim Observer. "We'd normally have diesel, bulk diesel as well but currently have no commitment from anybody to supply us with diesel so we are struggling to get fuel and have to get it at the pumps. We're effected the same as everyone else."

He continued: "Hauliers can only use diesel and our trucks would be burning an average of 250 to 300 litres per day. If we have an increase of 20 cent that is has a massive impact and more than that has major consequences. We have approached some of our customers and they have been very accommodating and given us fuel variation clauses in our contracts. Other companies have said that they can't."

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He stressed: "Currently the government is collecting carbon tax and we would recommend for now, that they waive the carbon tax, so we're able to get through this. Also there are a lot of duty etc., that they have control over; they have no control over the price of the fuel. So to help the economy to keep moving, they need to step in."

He said that the costs will have a trickle down effect on customers doing their weekly shopping. "We move timber and have to pass on those costs to the saw mills. We also supply firewood and woodchip and we're trying to hold our prices as they were but we burn fuel to produce the woodchip and also use electricity to dry it. We also have to transport the woodchip to it's destination, in the same way we have to do with the firewood, so it there will be knock-on effects on those prices."

He added: "We are absorbing the costs internally ourselves at the moment because we don't want to put up prices for our customers in the short-term in the hope that it will return to normal prices. Those prices will be passed on. Some of my colleagues in the haulage industry deliver to Lidl, Aldi, Tesco. Anything you have today in front of you like you're cup of coffee, the shoes on your feet; everything comes on the back of a truck so those costs will all be effected. For the government to wait  any more than a week has serious consequences for businesses."

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He added: "In the haulage industry we say that we are taxed on top of taxes on top of taxes. Apart from our corporation tax and PAYE tax etc., we pay a high level of tax on general day to day stuff with trucks. In the last three years, the haulage industry has gotten extremely expensive. With the emission standards, the new trucks have a higher benchmark to meet when it comes to emissions. Truck prices have increased by at least 20 per cent in the last three years alone. There are more tests and regulations; it's a moving feast and this is the straw that's broke the camel's back. 

He said he was one of the "lucky ones that has fuel variation clauses in some of our contracts but they don't click in for three months. In the short-term, the fact that we can't get fuel and have customers not willing to negotiate on the price increase, we have to make a decision as a company to park up some of our trucks or the runs that are more profitable. That will have consequences; we have customers who are with us twenty years."