Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Labour)

I do not know why the Minister does not agree to specifying that role for the road safety authority, so that it would take responsibility for the entire area. It is all very well for the Minister to wring his hands now and say the situation is disgraceful and indefensible. There is no doubt it is indefensible, but the situation in the driver testing section of the Minister's Department has been allowed to continue like that for several years, and to deteriorate. No serious effort was made by anyone to modernise it. At this point the Minister has the benefit of the consultants' report by Farrell Grant Sparks, which highlights the need to rationalise the number of testing centres. Given the size of the country it is crazy that there are so many centres, and in large part that has led to the crazy work practices, where so much time and money is spent on travelling and subsistence and so on. Is it the Minister's intention to introduce the reforms recommended in the Farrell Grant Sparks report? Responsibility for that can be spread over a number of different Ministers who were responsible during their terms of office and who are currently responsible for overseeing the operation of that service. Also the staff members involved have dug their heels in. All of this has led to young people not having a proper driver testing service. That is indefensible.

Is it the Minister's intention to implement all the recommendations in the consultants' report? Does he intend to move on it or does he envisage the new authority biting the bullet given that no progress has been made? Notwithstanding the problems of work practice, the Minister's assertion is that there is a sufficient number of testers, including the ten people being recruited. On the basis of commonsense it is difficult to make that assertion given the huge increase in car ownership and greater wealth leading to more people driving and the fact that there was an under provision of driver tests for many years. I do not know how the Minister can say the present number is adequate to meet the underlying demand for driving tests and that this is a hiccup that has just arisen and we need to clear the backlog. There is more than that involved. I do not know the basis for that assertion.

Would the bones of a resolution be in place in the event of a change in work practices, a rationalisation of the different centres and the number of driver testers being increased in line with the ongoing underlying demand given the increased population and a greater number of people driving? I am not sure whether giving all this work to an outside agency would work. The basic premise of what the Minister is saying may not be accurate in so far as I am not sure there is a sufficient supply of driver testers. Could not the huge backlog that has been allowed to develop be dealt with by temporary staff within the existing service, provided there were major changes in work practices?

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