Barry Ward (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State and appreciate his remarks. I am sorry the Minister does not have plans to change this rule. I hope we will be able to convince him otherwise. There are still inconsistencies. I acknowledge the road safety imperative involved and that being on two or three wheels is different from being cocooned in a car, and we can see that in the way the respective drivers behave.

However, the W category for work vehicles and tractors is still included in category B licences. We know there are frequent accidents on farms involving these vehicles, yet people who passed their driving test in a car do not have to do any extra or separate training to reinforce safety protocols for work vehicles. We have excluded the category of moped.

The Minister of State is correct that the position is not consistent across the European Union. In Denmark, for example, there is an LK category for smaller mopeds. We could have something like that, or we could include something in the driving or theory test or require some other theory test to be done. We have an unnecessary penalisation of certain categories, in particular young people.