Latest news with #Bleeper
Irish Independent
4 days ago
- Business
- Irish Independent
Calls for Government to extend tax saver scheme to more sustainable options
Mobility Partnership Ireland (MPI), which represents businesses such as bike-share company Bleeper, GoCar and Aircoach, has said extending the tax relief would help to take private cars off the road. The current tax saver scheme reduces the cost of using public transport for commuters, but MPI has written to the Department of Transport asking for it to be expanded to other modes of transport, including bike share, e-scooters, car-share and car rental, and taxis. The organisation said this would give commuters greater flexibility, and incentivise more sustainable travel. The proposal is to include a digital travel account in the State's TaxSaver scheme. An employee would be able to assign up to €100 per month tax-free through their salary to this digital travel account. They could then pay for Leap Card top-ups, shared bikes, e-scooters and car shares and taxis. MPI has said the proposal would benefit people living in rural areas, who often miss out on transport options included in the scheme because there are fewer public services available. Hugh Cooney, chair of MPI and founder of bike share company Bleeper, said just 25,000 commuters are using the current tax scheme. He believes the proposal would benefit more people across a greater spread of the country. 'Ireland needs to encourage more commuters onto sustainable transport. The TaxSaver scheme should offer a incentive to achieve this, but only about 25,000 commuters are participating,' Mr Cooney said. 'Unlike the current set-price TaxSaver ticket model, MPI's proposal for a digital sustainable TaxSaver Account would provide a flexible, pay-as-you-go approach covering a much wider range of transport options, benefitting more commuters in more counties.' Last month, the Department of Finance's Tax Strategy Group published papers outlining a list of options to be considered as part of the budgetary process, including the treatment of Vat on bicycles and e-bikes. According to the group, 'a number of representations' were received in relation to reducing the Vat rate for bicycles and e-bikes, to which the standard rate of 23pc currently applies. Reducing the Vat rate to 13.5pc would cost the exchequer €8m, the report said. However, the group said it was not possible for a lower Vat rate to apply to a subset of bikes, such as e-bikes or cargo bikes. It also pointed out that a reduction in the rate might not be passed to the consumer, 'because there is no obligation for a retailer to do so'.
Irish Independent
06-06-2025
- Irish Independent
Bleeper bikes service returns to Castleknock and Carpenterstown
Approximately €10,000 worth of damage was done to the Bleeper bike fleet this year in Dublin 15, with vandalism and theft rates going 'off the charts' after March 1, according to Steven McGinn, walking and cycling officer with Fingal County Council. 'So, rather than allowing that to progress and potentially put the entire [Bleeper] scheme at risk, we pressed pause in Dublin 15 and removed the bikes while we met with the local gardaí,' he said. Mr McGinn said this was 'very fruitful' and allowed Bleeper and gardaí to recover 15 of the 28 stolen bikes. Now the council is ready to progress with the first phase to reintroduce Bleeper bikes to Dublin 15, he told the local area committee yesterday. 'That's going to be around the Castleknock/Carpenterstown area. We're going to monitor that really closely and just make sure that everything is going to plan,' he said. 'Then we're planning to move back out to Hartstown and a few places like that. 'We'll reintroduce the bikes slowly, we'll keep an eye on the scheme and make sure everything's working the way it should. We will hopefully have a full reintroduction of the service in the next four to six weeks.' Councillor Angela Donnelly said the reintroduction was 'fantastic news'. 'I'm really, really pleased to hear that because the couple of people that came to me, it was their journey from their house to the train station that they really found the Bleeper bikes very useful,' she said. Fingal residents are entitled to a 'Fingal Pass' with Bleeper bikes, which allows them to cycle pedal bikes free for the first 30 minutes of their journey. After this period, they will be charged the regular rate of 4c per minute. The firm also offers e-bike options, with a higher rate of 16c a minute charged for those journeys. Mr McGinn added that the council was finalising a deal with another bike sharing provider, Moby, to bring their e-bikes to Dublin 15 in the next two weeks. Moby has also partnered with several other local authorities such as Dublin City Council and Wicklow County Council. Funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme
