Pa Daly (Kerry, Sinn Fein)

I thank the witnesses for coming in and for their presentations. The method Members of the Oireachtas has for directly contacting the RSA for urgent appointments has worked quite efficiently for us over the year and I thank them for that service.

We received a reply to a parliamentary question about driver test waiting numbers between 2021 and 2025. While there was 57,000 in 2021, maybe due to Covid, it reduced to 21,000 in 2022. It went up to around 58,000 in 2024, and then 83,000, which is an increase of 25,000 in one year. The RSA’s opening statement referred to “following receipt of sanction from Government” to take extra steps. When did it receive sanction from the Government exactly?