Results 3,961-3,980 of 26,018 for speaker:Kieran O'Donnell
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Some 170,000 are currently put through in a year. How many went through each year pre-Covid?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: By how much has that number increased?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: How many driving testers does the RSA have?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: How many were there before the pandemic?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: How many does the RSA need on top of the 131-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: -----to bring the waiting time back to ten weeks?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Is that in total? That is 34 additional testers. Some 35 testers are coming out of contract. If they were maintained, would the RSA need more? Does the 131 figure include the 35 testers who are out of contract?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: The RSA just needs the number of people who have been let go.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: That means the RSA had well over 160 testers a short time ago.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: It is back down to 131, even though demand is going up. Why did the RSA not look for a derogation, considering how extreme waiting times were? Why did it not go to the Department to say that given the exceptional situation, it would renew testers' contracts for one or two years?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Did the RSA request a derogation on this occasion to retain these 35 testers, considering that we are coming out of the Covid pandemic? It seems ludicrous to the ordinary person looking in to see that the RSA let 35 experienced driver testers go and they have to reapply when we are coming out of a pandemic during which we had extreme pressure on the system. Was that request put to the...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Who advised the process and indicated what it should be?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Could the RSA make a specific request to the Departments of Transport and Public Expenditure and Reform to allow it to extend the contracts, given that it is under such extreme pressure? I expect that many of the 35 people will be reapplying for the jobs when they could instead be performing driving tests with young people who are looking to get their driver licences. This is difficult to...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Why did the RSA not foresee and plan for this last year? Why are we here today arguing the toss on whether it will bring back highly qualified testers to deal with the backlog?
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: With all due respect, Mr. Waide cannot blame the third level education system for the RSA's backlog.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: With due respect, that should have been foreseen as well. Cars are not entering the country as quickly as they used to and people are holding onto older vehicles. Many more cars are now aged four years or over. The NCT issue is similar to the driving test issue. I call Deputy O'Connor.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: Is the priority list the by-product of a severe backlog-----
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: -----and the RSA has devised something to try to remove the immediate pressure? It is a symptom of a serious backlog that should never have built up.
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: It is great Mr. Waide and Mr. Walsh came in. We are here today because the public has been on to us about the delays. It should have been foreseen but we are where we are. I want us to get to a point of having an action plan to reduce waiting times. I will take the issues in order. Mr. Walsh mentioned there are 552 testers working in NCT testing centres. How many were there this time...
- Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport, Tourism and Sport: Engagement with Road Safety Authority (12 Oct 2022)
Kieran O'Donnell: That is a drop of 53. That is a significant figure.