Ms Verona Murphy:

I absolutely agree with Deputy Troy's point about high visibility vests. We do not want this to sound as if the IRHA has a mantra against other road users. Many bicycles in the city and in rural areas have flashing lights, but a bulb can blow, just as it can on a car. However, it is highly unlikely if one is wearing a high visibility vest that it will be ripped off. There is nothing electrified or mechanical about it. It is a high-vis vest doing its job. If a cyclist's bulb goes, there is some hope; if a cyclist's bulb goes and he or she is not wearing a high-vis vest, God help us all.

Much has been said about the CPC. From our perspective, it is an EU regulation, but in Poland and some of the other eastern European countries, it can be done, as the Deputy said, over a five-day period once every five years. One does all one's courses and modules and that is it. There is no requirement here on a foreign national driving a HGV to drive on an Irish licence. There is a recommendation that if a driver has been here for ten years and wishes to renew his or her licence, it should be renewed in this jurisdiction. It is only a recommendation. However, the driver must then carry out his or her CPC in this jurisdiction. It is delivered in English, full stop. I would much prefer that a Polish driver driving in Ireland go back to Poland to do his CPC in his own native language and come back to drive in Ireland. All things being equal, every CPC course is supposed to have the same aim, that is, to update professional competence. Therefore, the country in which one does one's CPC does not matter. My drivers go to Italy. They sit their CPCs in Ireland in their own language and they drive in Italy. The competence is about driving and updating. It does not warrant a written examination. It is a practical application of what we do. One can pass a written exam - we all know there are academics - but one might not be able to drive. One might be well capable of passing the exam; it is a matter of obtaining the information in a meaningful manner that assists with road safety and updating.

If I started talking about the pool of drivers and Brexit, we would need a whole committee of its own. The IRHA, particularly during my term of presidency, has for almost two years consulted with the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation to try to obtain non-EU work permits. There is a deficit of 40,000 drivers in the UK. There is probably now, in Ireland, somewhere in the region of a deficit of 10,000. This sounds outlandish and ridiculous but it is not. We are unable to expand business because of the shortage of drivers. We are heavily regulated. The chaps in front of me can drive all day and all night with what they do. There is no regulation. Our drivers can drive nine hours over a 15-hour period daily - that is it - and the 15 hours do not exist if they get their nine hours' driving done in ten hours. We are heavily regulated. If we want to operate a truck beyond a nine or ten hour period twice a week, we must have two drivers. The drivers are not there. They are not coming in. We need the non-EU permits to try to sustain us for what Brexit might bring. It is about planning and preparation.

I am told by the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, DJEI, that 174,000 people are on the dole. I do not dispute the figure, but how many of them are drivers who have HGV licences and whom we could retrain or do anything else with? I have never been told this. I have been virtually ignored in trying to get the non-EU work permits. It is about planning and it is about our consumers. If we do not have the drivers to drive the trucks, the trucks do not move and the good do not get to their destinations. We have several hundred South African drivers asking to come to this country to work. They speak English, they drive on the same side of the road as we do and they could undertake one of these courses or a proper HGV. We are prepared to put them through that but we cannot get them here. To my mind, this is a particular lack of foresight in the planning for Brexit and what it may or may not bring.

All we are asking is something simple. If we get our driver apprenticeship up and running, it will take three years to turn out fully qualified, competent drivers. We are asking for interim non-EU work permits for that period so that we may be sustainable. We are currently not sustainable. All these laws proposed by the Minister, Deputy Ross, and the cycling Bill are levelled at our profession from the point of view of when it gets enforced. If there is an accident between a truck and a cyclist, who will measure the road? There is no spacing between the cycle lane and the carriageway beside it of 1.5 m. It is nonsensical, unenforceable legislation and we will take more time arguing about it than doing anything else. It is a waste of everybody's time. There is enough law in this area for us to deal with. We can have non-EU work permits - the law is there - but nobody wants to give them to us. This causes ripple effect problems and people taking on drivers who are not properly trained. They are probably qualified but they cannot drive. However, "needs must". That is my worry. For some people, needs must, while others have responsible attitudes. They are not always the same.

If we are talking about road safety, why not take the drivers who speak English, drive on the same side of the road whom we could bring to Ireland and train them to work safely, instead of allowing somebody who has acquired a HGV licence through army conscription and thinks he or she can drive a truck for commercial purposes? That is all relevant to road safety.