Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

What is required is on the website and it is a very understandable website. If there are particular cases the Deputy wishes to bring to my attention she should give the details to my office and I will take them up with the NDLS.

The tender required that at least 95% of the population be within 50 km of a centre. It is important to bear in mind that unlike under the previous regime one can go to any centre and one does not have to go to the one in one's local authority area. They are open on Saturdays and during lunchtime, which was not the case under the previous regime.

An Post tendered for it. My understanding is among the reasons its tender was not successful was it could not guarantee openings on Saturday or at lunch time, and the cost of installing the equipment required to take the special photographs in every or many post offices was enormous. Even if it had gone to An Post it would not have been in every or most post offices; it would have been in a number of major post offices.

With regard to the gaps in the system the tender was done by the RSA and not by me and when it is done again it should probably be more prescriptive as to where centres are located. For example there is no centre in Dublin city centre. One must go to Santry, Citywest or Leopardstown for one's licence, which is odd. Generations of people who obtained their licence in the city centre wonder why this is.

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