Ruairí Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have to disagree with the Minister on one issue because I am not sure it is great to always have the kids in the back of the car. That statement should probably be struck from the record. I thank the Acting Chairman for his suggestion, which is a solid solution in relation to school transport. We know the service, which falls under the Minister's remit, has always been a mess. In fairness to Deputy Crowe, I should point out that his proposal is Sinn Féin policy. I am glad to see the Deputy moving in the correct direction.

If we go back to the Road Safety Authority and the 40 extra temporary testers for driving tests, the RSA seems to believe it will need 170 permanent testers. At this stage, why can we not sign off to recruit 40 temporary testers and the 40 full-time testers who will be required in future? Everything needs to be looked at and I know we were over and back on this. We were told the NCT issue would be addressed the end of quarter 2 this year. However, it will be the middle of 2024 before waiting times for driving tests are reduced to ten weeks.

That is built into the service level agreement, SLA, and is a significant time.