Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party)

Last week in the Dáil, I spoke of how two of my constituents were refused an exchange of their Belgian driving licences and will have to get provisional licences and retake the test. As they live in rural west Cork, they are essentially going into Covid lockdown for five months, unable even to get to the shops for a bottle of milk. This is the case the length and breadth of this island for many people. It is demeaning, distressing, unfair, extremely expensive and an unnecessary burden.

Irish citizens left Ireland in the difficult times to find work in the USA. Many are now looking to return to Ireland to raise their families or retire, bringing with them their skills and wealth. We are telling these Irish citizens, many of whom have been driving for over 40 years and originally held Irish licences, that they now need to get L-plates to drive in their own country. Our younger citizens have been driven abroad in a time of full employment by the high costs of housing. Now we are trying to attract back the skilled doctors, nurses, construction workers and engineers the country badly needs but when they come back, they cannot drive to their jobs.

The IDA has been working tirelessly in this difficult global environment to attract and retain companies from the USA to invest in our economy and create high-paying jobs, but the senior executives of those companies are being told they have to put L-plates on their company BMWs. This country should be better than that. Many in the Dáil may be familiar with former GAA president Larry McCarthy, who returned to Ireland in 2021 and had to hire a driver so he could do his job, despite having originally held an Irish licence and then a US licence for 37 years.

As an immediate action, will the Tánaiste direct the Minister for Transport to require the Road Safety Authority, RSA, and the National Driver Licence Service, NDLS, to revise their policy and recognise previous Irish driver licences without the ten-year limit? This is a straightforward action that would have zero impact on road safety. It would immediately support the Irish diaspora and returning Irish citizens. In parallel, as a solution to the broader problem, will the Tánaiste request the RSA and the NDLS to develop a proposal for a pragmatic and risk-based process for exchange of foreign driving licences, building on best practices and precedent from other EU countries?

The current RSA approach of seeking reciprocal driving licence agreements with individual US states is getting us nowhere. I am not surprised as I have not been able to find a single example where an EU country has a reciprocal driving licence exchange agreement with even one US state, most likely because US state licensing regimes are incompatible with EU standards. I expect the Minister and RSA are well familiar with that fact. I know we are unlikely to meet the commitments made in the programme for Government. Instead, Ireland can and should follow the example of many European countries such as Belgium, Finland, Denmark, Austria and Portugal, which have a unilateral licence exchange process, which includes the USA, operating in tandem with these reciprocal agreements. The RSA should leverage practices and precedents from our EU partners in a risk-based manner to revise our current restrictive system.

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