Mr. Eugene Drennan:

I will tell a horror story of a young fella who wants to return to Ireland and work for me. We told the RSA about it recently. He did his regional truck driving test here. He got his digi-card and did his first test here and left provisionally for Australia. He spent two years in Australia working in the mines in the outback running two or three big articulated trucks into Sydney every night. He is well qualified. When he was coming home, I told him to get a reference from the centre where he did his test and get his licence because Ireland had an exchange agreement with Australia like it does with South Africa. He is an Irishman returning home and already has the first part, the digi-card.

He is now ten weeks out of work because of all the rigorous procedures put in his way. He cannot proceed with the second half of changing his licence because when he handed in his licence for exchange to the NDLS, there was no control number or record of the licence going in. He cannot do his walkaround test, which none of us had to do. It is to see if the lights, brakes or horn are working in the morning. He cannot do his CPC course. Half of the references in it are nonsense anyway. He cannot have that part of the structure done before the licence comes back from Australia. I do not know what slowed things up on the Australian side but when he gets it back next week, ten or 11 weeks later, he has to start on all the other procedures. He is one of our own who is willing to come back to work and this is what we have put in front of him. It is outrageous.