Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)

I raised it in the Dáil and the change happened pretty immediately afterwards. That might be a coincidence and if it is, that is fine. I was raising it for a long time beforehand until I got so frustrated when somebody came into my office, crying, when parents came to me and when employers came to me, and when a person had a change in circumstances, could not get a licence and decided to go to Australia. Then the change happened and I am glad to hear that the RSA is doing this monitoring, because it is totally necessary, but many people suffered while that monitoring was going on. Many people did not get licences. Maybe 20% more people should have got licences on top of the 30% who did, which would bring it up to 50%. Maybe the intervention should have happened earlier.

I am not making a huge criticism, only an observation. For a young person going to college in Limerick and working weekends, €85 is a lot of money to blow three times because of an overzealous tester.