Mark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I hope members of the committee are happy with that.

My other correspondence relates to the RSA and a matter that was raised by road hauliers. The Committee of Public Accounts is also examining that matter but, given it concerns the RSA, it also falls under the remit of this committee. I did not realise the RSA has €25 million in the bank. That is a serious amount. It has €25 million in the bank while charging €72 million per year to people who are trying to export goods out of the country. The authority does not need all that money.

Hauliers have stated that the RSA is looking to consolidate power. This is why I asked for the regulatory impact assessment. This also affects the Chairman's constituency. The current testing system for hauliers means that if a haulier wants to bring a truck for testing, he or she can ring a local CVRT person with whom they have a relationship. The tester is not going to pass the vehicle because he or she knows the haulier, but the haulier can drop the truck in at 11 o'clock at night when it is back from its journey. That might shift to an amalgamated system because the RSA wants to put it out for tender and have one body to do it all, as is the case for car testing. When the road hauliers asked senior management of the RSA if they would be allowed to take the trailer on the truck to a tester at 11 p.m. or 6 a.m., they were told they would not. If there is a flaw with a truck, for example a brake pad is required on one wheel, hauliers are currently allowed by the operators of test centres to bring in their own mechanic and fix it on site. That would no longer be the case.

They would have to go to the cost of bringing in a truck to haul it away, which is hundreds of euro. That is why I asked that, before the RSA goes off and puts this out to public tender for one system, while we are all in pre-election mode and when we might put something in front of a Minister and say "sign that", we should ask it not to do any of that until it gives us a regulatory impact assessment on the impact on the average road haulier of its proposed system.

Another point, which is way more serious is that, based on information the RSA gave to Deputy Robert Troy, the level of testing it does on foreign registered trucks is minuscule - by its own admission, it is 5% to 8% - whereas the estimated proportion of foreign registered trucks, although the RSA does not know it exactly, is about 30%, or possibly higher.