Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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830. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport when recommendation 29 of the cost of insurance working group will be implemented; the reason for the delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31434/19]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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Recommendation 29 of the Cost of Insurance Working Group is to develop a protocol to provide that industry use the driver licence number to check driver details on the National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF).

Delivery of the capability to capture and validate driver number details will require both an initial industry-wide start date for the collection of data for new policies and an extended period to allow for driver number details to be collected on renewals. Before insurance companies can start requiring customers to supply both their driver number details and those of their named drivers on the policy, amendments to the Road Traffic Acts will need to be in place. Mechanisms will have to be developed and agreed between the DTTAS and all insurers in order for them to gain access to the NVDF to validate driver numbers.

Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)
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831. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport when the master licence record will be set up and running; the reason for the delay; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [31435/19]

Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent)
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The Master Licence Record (MLR) is an internal Department of Transport, Tourism and Sport (DTTAS) system which associates driver and vehicle records on the National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF).

The first phase of the project went live in October 2017. This phase established the MLR and populated the system by matching details of vehicle owners against details of driving licence holders stored in the NVDF. Approximately 18% of active private vehicle owner records were successfully matched in this phase. An updated version of the MLR is provided to An Garda Síochána on a weekly basis.

The next phase of the MLR project will go live later this summer. With this latest release, the MLR now includes over 30% of active private vehicle owner records.

Future phases of the MLR are planned but will require changes to primary and secondary legislation.