According to the Sunday Business Post of 20 November 2011 (paywall),
There is growing momentum behind a proposal to abolish the use of a green dye in subsidised agricultural diesel because of its widespread abuse through diesel ‘washing’ facilities.
The Irish Road Haulage Association wants the Minister for Finance “to leave all diesel white in colour, but allow agricultural users like farmers and contractors to receive a rebate for the diesel they purchase for agricultural use.”
Were this proposal adopted, it would mean that owners of private pleasure craft would be relieved of the obligation to make an annual return of their propulsion fuel purchases to the Revenue Commissioners, a return that must be accompanied by a cheque for the difference between the low price they currently pay for green diesel and the full price for white diesel. As I an quite sure that all owners are making such returns, the IRHA proposal would not increase the cost of boat use and would remove the form-filling.
I am so confident that all owners of private pleasure craft pay in full that I have asked the Revenue Commissioners to tell me how much the owners paid in each of the last two years.
Note, by the way, that the SBP’s account is at odds with that in the Irish Times on 9 November 2011, which said:
THE GOVERNMENT has effectively ruled out a rebate system to farmers and other legitimate users of agricultural or marked diesel to combat fuel laundering.
No doubt much spinning is going on.
Irish waterways history 