Mr. Andrew Edwards:

Good afternoon. I am the managing director of Go-Ahead Ireland. I am joined by my colleague Ms Niamh Swords, who is director of operations. We thank the committee for the invitation to today’s session.

Go-Ahead Ireland has been contracted by the National Transport Authority since 2018 to operate a total of 30 routes: 25 outer Dublin metropolitan area routes operating from our Ballymount depot, and five Dublin commuter services operating from our Naas depot. We are a team of more than 750 people employed across Dublin and Leinster, and we are proud partners of local charitable and community organisations.

In our appearance here today, we understand there are areas the committee would like to discuss with us, including driver recruitment. We will begin by reporting that we remain in a good position in recruiting new employees with regular applications and new starters to the organisation. We have a nearly full complement of bus drivers with 506 out on routes. We are in the process of training 103 drivers in our driver training school right now for future growth, ensuring that when a driver leaves, he or she is replaced immediately. We have 94 people who have been offered a job with us after going through our interview process and are waiting to start. We are thankful for the support of the Government in promoting public transport as a positive place to work in the past year, which has certainly assisted all bus operators in Ireland with attracting and recruiting more people into our industry.

As discussed last month with several committee members on a tour of our Ballymount depot, despite the improvements in driver training and recruitment, we still experience challenges concerning the time it takes from interviewing and hiring potential drivers to seeing those drivers hit the road and begin serving their communities. There are three primary factors that delay drivers getting on the road. Firstly, public transport operators are given a block booking of theory tests each week by the Road Safety Authority, RSA. As a result, we have been working four to six weeks in advance of booking tests, meaning that if a prospective driver is offered a job today, the theory test could only be booked in four weeks’ time. Locally managed theory testing by the operators would be one way to ease the pressure on both the company and the RSA for the number of tests required.

The second issue concerns practical driver testing. The RSA have been very accommodating in providing us with block bookings of driver tests scheduled for three weeks from a given date, though more are still needed. Those who fail the test cannot immediately retest. They must go to the back of the queue and are given another test in three weeks’ time. Additionally, slots cannot be swapped as they are assigned to an individual and not the company. Delegated examiners could be employed by the operators and overseen by the Government to allow for further tests to be given without delay, while maintaining the exceptionally high standards already in place.

A third issue is that once a driver has passed his or her test and completed the EU required certificate of professional competence, CPC, the licence and then the CPC card is applied for. Drivers cannot drive in service until they have the physical documents on them, which while processed quickly, can take a long time to come back to the drivers. Drivers could be able to drive once proof of application and processing has been done.

It should be noted that we enjoy a positive relationship with the RSA and we really value its work. The RSA has recently engaged with PSO bus operators to confirm their full support within the remit of the organisation and has committed to providing further support where it can regarding theory tests, CPC cards and driving tests. We very much appreciate the RSA's understanding and commitment to working with us to mitigate the issues we have faced. The RSA will revert back to us in the near future with additional guidance and improvements to address the challenges further.

We understand that the issues outlined are not the fault of any organisation as there are real societal pressures on all sectors and organisations post pandemic. We believe, however, that practical solutions are possible, in particular where we see the same process done differently in other jurisdictions that Go-Ahead Ireland operates in around the world, on which I would be happy to speak further this afternoon. We are grateful for the opportunity to speak with the committee members this afternoon about how future policy might be informed to meet the needs of public transport operators and the communities we are all proud to serve.