Duncan Smith (Dublin Fingal, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I thank the witnesses and wish them the best of luck in the continuing growth of their branch. Gaining some 90 members in seven months in a pandemic is quite an achievement. I thank them for their testimonies today. I have a few quick questions. The witnesses can take as much time as they wish to answer them. If there is anything else they wish to add or any issues raised by other members on which they would like to expand, I will give over the rest of my time to them.

There have been calls to move the theory test online and away from the test centre facilities. As testers, do the witnesses think this would help in terms of the intelligent scheduling of tests and allowing more space? Is it something that could be done?

On the issue of driving lessons for essential workers, who perhaps were getting close to applying for their test, how are they being dealt with at the moment? Are they not able to get test dates? What are the thoughts of the witnesses on how that is going to feed into the bulge?

Finally, and I believe it was mentioned in response to Deputy Ó Murchú, the call for the extension of the ADI permit is absolute common sense, and it is something that we should strongly support as a committee, as well as the waiving of the fee. That is essential. Would there be a pool of, for example, recently retired ADIs that could be quickly activated? I do not really like that model of going to retired workers and asking them to return to work. We would want to bring new workers in, but given the times that we are in, is that something that could be examined?