The Irish Petrol Retailers Association (IPRA) has said that fuel theft cases are increasing at an exponential rate, and some retailers are struggling to cope with the losses.
A straw poll of the membership suggests that many stations are losing up to €40,000 per year in fuel drive offs.
David Blevings, spokesperson for IPRA said, “This is a very serious issue and for many retailers is not sustainable. We have been working with An Garda Síochána via our Fuel Watch pilot scheme in an effort to help them to tackle this issue. They came to us for help when they calculated how large and under-resourced this issue is for them. Garda time is precious and should not continue to be wasted on chasing up fuel theft, however, not chasing it up allows a free for all across the country. You just need to google “fuel theft Ireland” and you will see how bad this problem really is.
There are solutions to preventing drive offs. In GB, they operate the BOSS system (https://bossuk.org/) which offers an 80% restitution rate. We have a further meeting with An Garda Síochána next week and have asked Minister O’Callaghan TD to look seriously at the legislation around GDPR and how a BOSS type scheme could operate in Ireland.
This is a very serious issue, and needs addressed urgently. There are solutions and we are begging the politicians to look at this issue and help us prevent further loss”, added David.