Martin Cullen (Waterford, Fianna Fail)

I have spent some time dealing with this issue. Section 4(1) provides that the road safety authority will have functions in regard to registration of instructors that will be designated in regulations made under the Road Traffic Acts. The road safety authority will be an approved body that will be able to issue instruction certificates for the purpose of regulating driving instructors. Deputy Shortall's proposed amendment would convey no power to regulate driving schools. It is incorrect because the subsection only refers to the functions of the road safety authority in accordance with the Road Traffic Acts 1961 to 2004. There is no power in the Road Traffic Acts to regulate driving schools.

The provision in section 18 of the Road Traffic Act 1968, as amended by section 19 of the 2002 Act, is intended to regulate individuals while giving driving instruction. If driving schools were to be regulated, it would be more appropriate to provide the power to do so by way of an amendment to the Road Traffic Acts, which provide the power to regulate driving instructors. It would also require a much more extensive provision than that proposed by the Deputy. It is the quality of instruction that is important in this context and the regulation of driving schools as trading entities should be adequately covered by other legislation.

At a recent meeting, the driving schools indicated that the delivery of instruction by individuals is the key issue to be regulated. I agree that the quality of driving instructors is the key issue. The representatives of the schools felt that if individual instructors were registered and monitored, it would address the issue. This will happen under the road safety authority. I asked them to consider if there was any other aspect of driving schools which needed to be regulated and which was not covered by existing regulatory provisions relating to companies. They said that most driving schools were single person operations and that no other areas, other than instruction standards, needed to be regulated further. We have pursued this aspect specifically.

I will introduce a new Bill that will revisit the issue because the legislation before us is clearly not the mechanism by which the matter can be addressed. As stated on Committee State, I am still somewhat sympathetic to the Deputy's view. However, we are bestowing upon the road safety authority the power to deal specifically with standards, quality, registration, certification or whatever of instructors and that is the core issue which gave rise to the legislation's introduction. The section in question is not the vehicle to facilitate the Deputy's suggestion because it deals specifically with that matter and the road safety aspect. I suspect that we will revisit the matter in a couple of weeks under a new road traffic Bill, which will be the road safety Bill.

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