Mr. Brendan Walsh:

I will bring us back to summer 2022, when the service was at six weeks. A number of temporary testers were deployed to deal with the post-Covid numbers that needed to be dealt with. They were released because they had reached the end of their contracts. What has happened in the past three quarters, if we go back 18 months, is we are seeing that the number of people being educated to drive and applying for learner permits is at an unprecedented level.

In my opening statement, I referred to how, compared with 2019, we have seen an increase of 53% in the number of people on learner permits. In the younger age group, from 17 to 20, it has increased by 64%. That represents the highest single number. We reduced the capacity because it was there to deal with the surge that had resulted from Covid. Those contracts had come to an end and we spoke about that the last time we were here. What we had not foreseen, which we have only got our heads around in the past 12 months, is that the level of demand for that service is now at unprecedented levels. We have 2,400 approved driving instructors, ADIs, operating in the country. That is a significant increase above pre-pandemic levels, when it was around 1,700. The number of people who hold learner permits, as I referred to, has increased by 53%. The number of applications coming in for the physical driving test has increased significantly.

As part of our normal business, we have hired an additional 30 permanent driving testers, which took us from a base of 100 driving testers who were permanent to 130. It was our expectation that that would satisfy the future demand for the service. As I have said, the levels we have seen are unprecedented. We have been working closely with our colleagues in the Department of Transport, who have granted us sanction to bring in additional temporary testers for the next two years. We will take what appears to be effectively the new trend, which has been there for six quarters, and we will continue to monitor that for the next nine months. After that, we will enter discussions with the Department of Transport about maybe further increasing the permanent representation of our driving testers.