Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail)

Like a number of his colleagues the Minister is a regular and welcome visitor to the House. When important legislation is introduced in the House I hope that will be a continuing feature of his mandate. When legislation comes before the House initially it is an opportunity for reasoned debate in a less adversarial atmosphere than the other House and allows the Government to tease out possible flaws that could be improved. I am stating the obvious but, as my colleague, Senator O'Sullivan has indicated, we welcome the overall thrust of the Bill. There are some who would say, we would, considering that the base and the bones of the legislation were initiated under the previous Government following the review, the recommendations of which were accepted by the Minister's predecessor, the former Minister Noel Dempsey. In that context there are a number of issues, some of which have been raised, which will continue to be raised in the debate.

An issue I wish to focus on is the centralisation of the driver licence system. One of the main recommendations of the review committee was that the system should be centralised primarily because it would introduce greater efficiency into the service. I would argue that the recommendations came at a different time. Perhaps the amount of largesse floating around the economy at the time may not necessarily have focused local authorities on introducing the type of efficiencies that have been introduced as a result of the recession; in other words, I suggest local authorities are lean bodies because they have had no choice as the central block funding has been reduced and its revenue raising powers are limited. Depending on the local authority with which one is involved, there have been significant reductions in staff numbers, reallocation of duties and greater efficiencies have had to be introduced. Since the drawing up of the report and acceptance of the recommendations go back to 2007, I argue that five years on we are in a different world. For that reason I do not agree that greater efficiencies will be introduced to the system by centralising the driver licence system. The Minister will be aware that IMPACT which represents many of those involved has referred to staff issues and the loss of functions in local authorities. I am grateful to the Library and Research Service for proving the information. It makes the point that this proposal goes against a recent OECD report on the public service in Ireland which argued that local authorities should be used more frequently in the delivery of public services.

I am grateful to the Oireachtas Library and Research service for providing this information:

This proposal goes against a recent OECD report on the public service in Ireland which argued that local authorities should be used more frequently in the delivery of public services. The current service also enjoys a very high rate of customer satisfaction. This proposal runs a very serious risk of further eroding local services in the wake of ill-considered decisions about public bin collections and concerns about the future control of water services.

In responding to a parliamentary question on the possible role of An Post, the Minister in reply referred to the fact that the work involved, namely, centralisation, would involve three main aspects, namely, card production, front office engagement with the customer and back office processing of applications, and stated that all three functions would be operated under contract. This begs the question, "If it ain't broke, why fix it?" Is the Minister sufficiently confident that the centralisation of this service will result in the type of efficiencies that might have been envisaged five or six years ago when the report provided the detail it did, in light of all that has happened since? I leave that question hanging because essentially we have been presented with a fait accompli and the Minister will go ahead with it in any case.

It also begs another question. The Minister's Cabinet colleague, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, who, like the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, is a very regular and welcome visitor to this House, has repeatedly assured the House that in the overall structure of local government reform he will ensure there will be an enhanced role for local authorities which will be given greater power, not less, and that many of the revenue-raising initiatives that were part and parcel of the rates system which was essentially the bedrock of the local authority system's revenue collection environment and which Fianna Fáil abolished. There is no question about that although at the time - I do not want to go back on old history - the manifestos from Fine Gael and, I believe, the Labour Party, stated they would introduce a 50% demolition followed by full abolition. There was a climate of abolition at the time, rather than one of looking for alternatives. However, we are where we are, according to that awful phrase and now this Government is attempting to roll back that 40-year history, on which I compliment it. That is the reason I focus so much on this question of local democracy. I do not know how it will work out in practice but we must wait and see.

There are two other issues I wish to raise. The test centres will go to contract and it is stated that during a transition period of two years the existing test centres will continue to operate, after which there will be some new form of overview or monitoring of the new tendered centres. One assumes the existing test centres will be allowed to tender under the new regime and the chances are that in large part those that operate under the present regime will probably remain. There is a positive there in that if there were to be a significant change there might be potential job losses. I am sure the Minister will reassure the House that he does not anticipate there will be many, or any, job losses in the test centres.

The final point I wish to raise with the Minister relates to the driving licence issue. There is reference in the Bill to drivers aged over 70 years who require a fitness certificate from a doctor and who can apply for three-year licences. The Minister may have read in recent media reports - one case in particular was mentioned in the letters to the editor page of either The Irish Times or the Irish Independent - that certain insurance companies are refusing to provide car insurance for drivers over 70 in spite of the fact that they have a fitness to drive certificate from their doctor. I do not know whether this issue has come across the Minister's desk. If it is only anecdotal fine, but might there be there some kind of trend because of consolidation of the entire insurance industry and the reduction of risk? The question raised by the letter writer was to the effect that surely there was a far greater risk in the case of a younger person and that is the reason insurance is heavily weighted against younger people. This individual stated he had more than 40 years' driving experience free of any injury or accident, is operating on a full loading of his no claims bonus and yet has been turned down for insurance. I am sure there are many like him. I raise this in the wider context that it may be something the Minister's Department would look at to see if this practice is widespread within the insurance industry. Are companies effectively refusing to cover drivers over 70 years of age who can provide a fitness to drive certificate from their local GP, as required by law?

Overall, I reiterate we welcome the broad thrust of the Bill and wish the Minister continued success in his areas of responsibility.