Timmy Dooley (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am wondering about the impact of Covid-19 on testing, which Mr. Walsh identified as those that were within his sphere. If we look at the number of people across the two four-year pieces, run the numbers on that again, and spread it over the period of time, I suspect the differential will not be as great. However, I can only surmise. In any event, it is just a comment on the RSA's planning because it clearly is not fit for purpose. I ask the RSA to look at this, or perhaps bring in external expertise, to try to ensure that what it is now planning will meet the demand because we cannot have this situation. All I can do is share with Mr. Walsh the frustration of people who come to my clinics. We have a housing crisis and nobody around here needs a lecture on that.

Kids are going to college who are unable to get accommodation. Their parents are driving them to college every day, up to 30 km, 40 km or 50 km in the rural areas. In County Clare, those people are going to Limerick and Galway. Ordinarily, these students would be able to drive. Now they are not. I am not being critical here. I am just trying to explain the extent to which this is a major problem for people who live in rural Ireland and do not have access to the kind of public transport that people in the capital city and other cities do. This is the reality. Their frustration is absolute. Having listened to him, Mr. Walsh is doing his best, but it would be cold comfort for me to go back and tell somebody who does not have accommodation in Limerick or Galway or who has just got a job in Ennis and is living in Kilrush, Scariff, Tulla or wherever that this problem will be sorted by the middle of 2024.

What I want to hear from Mr. Walsh, therefore, and I am not getting it, is that he appreciates the seriousness of this issue, that a system is being put in place which will be more finely tuned to changes in demographics and different elements that might impact on the cycle, that an early warning system is in place and that there is a methodology to respond in this regard. Mr. Walsh made one comment that I may have misheard, but it kind of shocked me. He said that to hire above a certain level might not be fiscally prudent because it might expose the State to regret. With the greatest respect, and if he does not mind me saying so, this should not be his concern. That is the job of the Department of Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform. I am sitting here beside a former Minister who well knows the line Department's job is to get its work done. In my view, Mr. Walsh should be trying to meet the service level agreement and doing everything in his power to get it back on track. Therefore, if the Department tells Mr. Walsh to hang on a second in this regard and he then comes back to this joint committee and tells us the Department will not provide the requisite sanction, then that is the position I think he should be in. Does Mr. Walsh not believe there is any irony in the fact that, on the one hand, the RSA is levying, or imposing, a fine on Applus for failing to meet its service level agreement, when, on the other hand, the RSA's service level agreement is so far out of kilter?

While I am talking and before I calm down, Mr. Synnott indicated that he did not think some of these timings were that long. I just had a text message from a constituent trying to book a car test for today, yesterday or whenever it was and the soonest it is possible to get one in Ennis is next February. This is in County Clare and it tells its own story. Mr. Synnott spoke about there being an additional facility in the Clare-Limerick region. I understand there were plans to build one in Shannon. I ask Mr. Synnott to update us on where that situation stands. I have left a few minutes for everybody to come back in and answer.