Ms Moyagh Murdock:

I will draw on a bit of history. In the past, bus operators all over the country would have used the annual test as a diagnostic tool. They would send in their vehicles and see what came out of it. They would go off and fix what was picked up on that test. In those days, buses would have come in with a lot of dangerous defects. We have changed that culture now so that people realise they must keep their vehicle roadworthy at all times of the year. That is still not hitting home at this point. We have put in a table of statistics for the roadside compliance rate. The results are always better in the third quarter than they are as the year goes on because that is the beginning of September when the schools are back. Meetings would have been held over the summer. There is a deterioration of the standard of the fleet on the road in the other three quarters of the year. That is because operators get their vehicles ready tor the back-to-school operation and then take their eyes off the ball and it starts to deteriorate. The operators then prepare again for their annual test, whatever time of the year that is. We want them to be roadworthy at all times of the year.

There are some unscrupulous operators. It is a small number, as we explained. It is about 10%, so there are 90% that are better than that, either very good or there are other things that they can do to improve their performance. We specify that there are a small number of unscrupulous operators. We recognise we get great support from the vast majority of operators out there for this approach. It levels the playing pitch. There are guys who are cutting corners and putting cheaply kept vehicles on the road and hoping for the best, that it does not get picked up in an annual test. We want to eradicate that.

The Deputy referred to someone who brings their vehicle in and it passes the test and fails a day or two later. There is a concern as to why that would happen. There is a robust oversight of all the commercial vehicle centres.