Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome that response but I reiterate the point that we need to work out this in advance. When the EU directive is published it may contain changes which will be expected to be rolled out in every country in Europe. If those changes are going to have an impact on some of the people who drive vehicles of the aforementioned nature, they need to know in advance because it can take quite a long time to get tests and to put things in place to ensure they have the appropriate licence. Perhaps there will be no changes but we need to have clarity around that because there is still some confusion. I accept that the change was made on the RSA website and I welcome that but there is still some confusion about this issue, including about what impact the directive will have and what that will mean for people working on building sites and other areas where they drive large vehicles of that nature.

In a broader context, it is quite unusual for the licensing authority to be so quick to put something up on its website when the directive will not be published for months yet. At the same time, we have hundreds of people with provisional licences driving on the roads on an ongoing basis, which is quite dangerous, and that has not been dealt with by the authority.

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