Mr. Dominic Brophy:

The stakeholders' forum was set up by the RSA in 2011. It has 11 members on its forum, made up of ADIs who are supposed to represent driving instructors nationwide. The forum has little or no power. It is basically just communication between the RSA and driving instructors. In the middle of a pandemic when we needed it most, it has met once in the last 13 months. It met in August.

I found out last night from one of the members that another meeting was planned but not scheduled. As a driving instructor, I have sent many emails to my own representative and I have not received replies on the issues I raised. The belief among our members and any ADIs we speak to in driver test car parks or wherever we might be or over the phone is that, first, many people are not aware of them and, second, the ADIs are not aware of the work they do. We believed, as a union branch, that we had to step up in the middle of a pandemic. We were not receiving any help or guidance. We decided that we had to step up and take control of our own industry and have some kind of say in the way we wanted things to progress in the future.