Bertie Ahern (Dublin Central, Fianna Fail)

As I have said previously, if just one person dies on the roads, that is one person too many. Some 399 people died on the roads last year, which is several hundred less than the number of people who died when there was a fraction of the current amount of vehicles on the roads. That does not detract from the Government's desire to minimise the number of people dying on the roads.

It is not a question of a derogation from Sustaining Progress. I think everybody on the union, staff and Government sides was surprised by the interpretation of the arbitration board in its findings. The Deputy has asked the Minister to engage with the trade union and staff sides to try to reach a resolution to this problem. The Government is already engaged in such discussions. I appreciate the willingness of the staff side to do that.

I think every public servant is in favour of increased flexibility in working arrangements and the elimination of rigidities and restrictive practices, with a view to enhancing the efficiency and effectiveness of the public service, which are among the central themes in the modernisation of that service. I emphasise that the Minister is not trying to remove the driver testing service from the public service or abolish the jobs of the staff who have worked hard in the driver testing area over many years. The high numbers of learner drivers and people who want to do the driving test mean we need to introduce an outside contractor, at least in the short term. As Deputy Kenny said, a contractor is aware of the discussions which have taken place in recent years and is ready to operate in this area. We have engaged, in the interests of good industrial relations, with the fairly long process that has been a feature of this issue. We understand that we have to follow the system for dealing with public servants, even if it takes a long time.

We have tried to do everything we can to address the difficulty we are facing. As I have said, the Minister has gone to exceptional lengths to maximise what can be done within the system. We cannot deal with the problem within the system. We need to out-source and contract. We have the capacity and resources to do that, even on a temporary basis. We need to reach a conclusion in respect of industrial relations and we are trying to do that. We do not want to act in an arbitrary way as that would not be in the interests of good industrial relations practices. We will try to make progress. We are pleased that the unions have engaged with us in trying to reach a quick resolution to this problem.

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