Denis Landy (Labour) | Oireachtas source

I wish to raise the issue of the new service for the provision of national driving licences. Last year the Government decided to take the provision of the service from the local authorities and set up a new organisation. A contract was given out, centres were set up across the country and people had to attend these centres during working hours to get their new driver licences. This has turned into a fiasco in some areas. In the early weeks of last year the system stalled and nobody could get any work done despite the fact people had taken time off their employment to go to the centres to have their licences issued.

The issue was raised in the Lower House in December with the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, who has responsibility for this service. In response to the issue raised, the Minister intimated that it needed time to bed in and that, if the difficulties continued, he would look at the matter. In the last week, in my own county of Tipperary, the system again stalled and people who had taken time off work to go to the new driving licence centre wasted their day. It is time the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, took a serious look at this.

The other difficulty is the location of the centres. For example, in all of Kerry, there is only one centre, in Tralee, and in all of Cork, there are only two, in Cork city and Skibbereen. In my own county, the biggest inland county in the country, there are only two, in Clonmel and Nenagh. People have to take time off work and travel to these places to discover, in some instances, that the service does not work. They then have to go back again, wasting time when they should be at their workplace. It is time the system was looked at and time the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, did what he said he would do, that is, to review and make changes if necessary.

In the last week we have had a lot of discussion in regard to the role of post offices, particularly in rural Ireland. I see this as an opportunity for post offices to play a part in the provision of the new driver licence system. Post offices could be used in the areas I have outlined and in other parts of the country where there are large gaps in the provision of this service. This could help to enhance the role of post offices across the country. I ask the Leader to raise this matter with the Minister, Deputy Varadkar, with a view to involving the post office in the provision of this service.