Ms Verona Murphy:

The Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation is responsible for issuing permits and has not given me a cohesive response. What really frustrated the Irish Road Hauliers Association is that when we wrote to it in July 2016, its response was that a consultative group had recommended that it would be far more advantageous for the IRHA to set up an apprenticeship programme. Our programme was actually due to be rolled out the previous May but there had not been certification. We had a major Department telling us that we should set up such a programme. In the application for non-EU work permits in 2016, we indicated that we had an apprenticeship programme but that a person would be in training for three years and that we would not have professional drivers until 2019. It was as if the letter we had written had not been read. We received a narrative in response in that we were asked to set up a driver apprenticeship programme. It was indicated that there was no need for permits.