Mr. Maurice Treacy:

There is a distinction. The proposal that came from the Commission was a regulation. Since the discussion at Council, the proposal now is that it become a directive. To clarify, this process must go through the European Parliament again and we suspect it will have the same debate as happened during the Council meeting. I cannot say at this stage whether, when it comes for decision, it will be decided to make it a regulation or directive. I suspect the Council and Irish point of view would be that it should be a directive.

The issue of the periodic testing of vehicles arose. The current position with regard to car tests is that a car is first tested after four years and then every following two years until it is ten years old. At that stage, it is tested annually. That decision and policy was taken following significant work by the RSA in previous years. The suggestion was that older cars, those over ten years, are involved in more accidents than cars that are under that age and that technical defects have been a contributory factor. We have taken the view, therefore, that cars over ten years of age need to be tested annually. The proposal in the regulation that came from the Commission was that annual testing should start after six years. Most member states did not agree with that. From the point of view of the Council, as drafted currently, the decision is left to the discretion of each member state. If the proposal goes through as a directive with the current wording, we will stick to the ten years before requiring an annual test.

Deputy Ellis asked about motorbikes. We do not have the equivalent of an NCT for motorbikes currently, because the case has not been proven that there is a requirement for them. The RSA is doing some work on this and has started a consultation process. If, following the consultation process, there is evidence that technical faults in motorbikes are causing fatalities or serious injuries on the road, we will take that on board and re-examine the situation. There is no disagreement in principle to introducing a test for motorbikes, but the case has not been proven.