Ms Alison Coleman:

With respect to the question, I will not get into the cases. I believe the article was about ADIs. I saw it as well. The RSA has responsibility for the regulation and maintenance of the register of those individuals. We would vet those individuals when they come on, and we maintain the register. We re-vet every two years and, in addition, we regulate the register. My colleague who will be here next week manages that particular area. With respect to our own directly employed driver testers, I am nearly certain that it was ADIs who were involved in the unfortunate behaviour. A number of complaints were made against particular ADIs.

To state as much as I can to the Senator, we will be reporting to our board on this. It is quite interested in having an update on what we do in such circumstances. We do not have many powers over the group in question. As I said, we are a regulator. However, when complaints are made to us – they can be made directly to us – we refer them to the proper body if we feel it is required. Alternatively, we engage with the stakeholder group of ADIs, which we meet regularly. Our managers would meet that group regularly to discuss these issues over and back. That is like the representative group for that particular area. The matter is taken quite seriously and, as I understand it, our board has actually asked for an update on how we manage the kinds of complaints in question when they come in. For the most part, when they are so serious and of the nature in question, we refer them to a body such as An Garda Síochána, which may be in a position to assist.