Farm Contractors Ireland (FCI) has insisted that its members’ tractors should be exempt from the planned NCT-style testing of tractors.

As revealed by the Irish Farmers Journal on Friday, proposed rules for the new tractor testing regime would see farmers’ tractors exempt but contractors’ tractors caught in the net for testing.

FCI has outlined why it believes agricultural contractors’ machines should be exempt from testing.

It said work of land-based agricultural contractors in Ireland is very clear, as the work activity:

  • is carried out by a person engaged in an agricultural, horticultural, forestry, farming or fisheries undertaking;
  • is for the purpose only of that agricultural, horticultural, forestry, farming or fisheries undertaking;

    • and

  • is ancillary to, as the case may be, the agricultural, horticultural, forestry, farming or fisheries activities of that undertaking.

    • Contractors’ tractors should be exempt from testing

    FCI insisted that contractors’ tractors should be exempt from testing as they are not haulage tractors.

    They are used solely for the transport and transfer of agricultural crops from the field to the farm, farm waste from the farmyard to the field and other agricultural activity.

    Contractors should not be further penalised compared to farming tractor users, the FCI added.

    Further meetings are expected between the farming and contractor associations and the Department of Transport in the coming fortnight.

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