Mr. Dominic Brophy:

I thank the Deputy. In answer to his question on whether we need more driving instructors, we do. The way it has traditionally been is the market dictates how many driving instructors come into the system, but we have to bear in mind that driving instruction has more or less ceased for a year. There is a huge backlog of driver test applicants who need to be serviced and dealt with, so we need more driving instructors. For us, as a union, that is really out of our control as we do not recruit driving instructors nor does the Road Safety Authority.

On a side issue, if today someone decides to become a driving instructor, the problem is the process takes too long. It can take, at the very least, six months. It costs a lot of money to get into and the process to become a driving instructor is financially expensive and takes quite a lot of time. What we find happens is that some people start the exams, but since there are three levels, they might do level one and not move on to level two because another job offer may come in. We need a campaign from the Road Safety Authority to encourage people to come into the business.

Regarding the fail rate on driver tests, at the moment the pass rate nationwide is 54%. When we talk about the backlog, we have to talk about increasing the pass rate. If the pass rate goes up, then we will not get driver test applicants doing their test, failing, going to the back of the queue, queueing up again and maybe even failing it again. That is why we need time to prepare people for the driver test, so they have the best chance of passing.