Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Before we proceed, I welcome the group from Mulcair Men's Shed. It is a good group. It is the second group to have come in. Its headquarters are in Abington but it really covers all of east Limerick, right into the city. I welcome our visitors and hope they enjoy the proceedings. Many of us here, including me, Deputy Carey, Deputy Lowry and others, are from the mid-west.

I will take up one point with the Minister of State. The RSA looked for funding to increase the number of driver testers from 100 to 130 in June and the Minister of State gave her agreement. Was she aware that it was going to be letting more than 30 driver testers go between that time and August or September? The RSA was recently before the committee and we thought it was madness. Did it submit a request to the Minister of State to retain those experienced driver testers for a further period? The irony of this is that the RSA said that 100 testers was not enough and that it needed 130 but then let 30 of those 100 testers, who had been with the RSA for a number of years, go and went out to recruit. That means it had to recruit 60. Did it submit a request? We asked the RSA to make a request to the Department and the Minister of State to be allowed to rehire these experienced driver testers, of whom I believe there were 32. To go back to Deputy Carey's point, young people are waiting for testers. Has a request to rehire those 30 or 32 testers been made? The RSA publicly gave the committee a commitment that it would make such a request. Is she aware of this particular situation?