The Supreme Court has ruled that Bus Éireann’s bus routes between Ireland and the United Kingdom are passenger road services within the meaning of the Road Transport Act 1932. It allowed the company’s appeal and answered “yes” to the question referred to the High Court by an appeal commissioner.
The case concerned a fuel duty rebate. Bus Éireann bought fuel in Ireland and paid excise duty on it. The company claimed a rebate for fuel used in its passenger services, including fuel consumed on the part of international routes outside the State. The appeal commissioner had found that Bus Éireann was entitled to a rebate of £139,562 and that none of the fuel bought in the UK was included in its claim.
The High Court had decided the legal question in Revenue’s favour, holding that routes between Ireland and the UK were not “passenger road services” under the 1932 Act. Revenue Commissioners appealed that decision; Bus Éireann opposed the appeal.
Delivering the Supreme Court judgment on 18 November 2004, Mr Justice McCracken said the definition in the 1932 Act did not limit routes to those wholly within the State. He considered the Act’s licensing provisions and purpose, including public protection, and concluded that a service could be licensed in Ireland to a terminal point abroad without Ireland legislating for transport wholly within another country.
The court rejected Revenue’s argument that treating an international route as one service would give the Act extra-territorial effect. It said the alternative would effectively split the journey at the border, leaving passengers subject to the Act’s protections only on the Irish portion. The judgment also noted that the Act could have expressly required terminal points or routes to be within the State, but did not do so.
The Supreme Court’s formal decision was to allow the appeal and answer the case-stated question “yes”: Bus Éireann, while operating routes between places in the State and the UK, was carrying on a passenger road service under the 1932 Act. The judgment discussed why a rebate might apply wherever fuel was used, but expressly said that point could not determine the interpretation of the 1932 Act. The formal answer addressed the service definition; the judgment does not state a separate order fixing the rebate payable.