Sheila Terry (Fine Gael)

Like Senator Morrissey, I wish to raise the action taken by the driver testers today whereby they cancelled the driving tests of 1,300 young people. It is a disgrace and shows utter disregard for the effort and, indeed, anguish many people go through to sit the test. They only learned in the past couple of days that their tests have been cancelled. This action shows utter disregard for those people and for the system.

A total of 140,000 people in this country are waiting to do their driving tests. It was said in the news programmes this morning that the people whose tests were cancelled today will be slotted in over the next couple of days. How can that be done when there are so many people waiting up to 12 months to do the test? It just means the waiting list will get longer with further delays. This action must be condemned. I hope the Minister will be successful in what he is trying to do. The driver testers are not endearing themselves to the people of this country and particularly the people whose driving tests were cancelled. I hope the situation will be resolved as quickly as possible and I support the Minister in what he is trying to do.