The proposed Driver Testing and Standards Authority is unlikely to be dealing with the backlog of driving test applicants as soon as the Minister hopes, writes Tim O'Brien
The Minister for Transport, Mr Brennan, has launched another of his initiatives to accelerate delivery of improved services for the motoring public.
In attempting to deal with the chronic backlog of driving test applications, the Minister said the new Driver Testing and Standards Authority would essentially tackle two problems: the wait of up to 66 weeks for a driving test, and the number of drivers whose long-term reliance on provisional licences is a threat to road safety.
He also wants to overhaul the current system of testing drivers, set standards for driving instructors and take on a broad brief to monitor general driving standards in the State.
The idea itself is not new. Plans for revision of current practices were put forward in a report by the Comptroller and Auditor General in 2000, whose report found among other things that the driving test fee was not enough to cover the cost to the State. A separate, subsequent report by PricewaterhouseCoopers highlighted inefficiencies in the driver testing system.
The Department of Transport hopes the legislation dealing with the setting up of the new authority will be published in days and through the Oireachtas before the summer recess, and that it will then reduce waiting times to about 12 weeks on average.
Pressed on this point a spokesman for the Minister said it might be early next year before the authority comes into force.
In keeping with the Minister's personal philosophy, the new authority's ethos is blatantly private sector. The heads of the bill to be published will indicate staff at the new authority are to be "non-civil service". The authority is to have a chief executive and a board of directors, raise its own finance, hire its own staff and can set up and operate other commercial ventures.
But for all its laudable aspects, key questions remain unanswered: Why does the State need a new agency to operate the driving testing and standards elements? What will the new agency do that the current section of the Department of Transport can not?
Can the public really believe, as the Fine Gael transport spokesman, Mr Denis Naughten, asked, that the new legislation will be through the Oireachtas before the summer recess, in a packed programme which includes legislation from the Department of the Environment to allow the M50 to be completed through Carrickmines, as Mr Brennan said, by December this year?
It was arguably not the Minister's fault that the number of people taking the driving test has surged from 180,000 in 2001 to 234,000 in 2003, after Mr Brennan announced that he would be outlawing the practice of driving on a provisional licence for extended periods. Irish candidates are waiting an average of five times more than their counterparts in Britain.
But the Minister's initiative might have gone down better if it was not one of a number of initiatives relating to the private motoring sector which have either been put on the long finger or have been dropped.
These include a possible transport authority to regulate public transport services, the appointment of a taxi regulator, the establishment of a Garda or civilian traffic corps, a possible amendment to the clearance height to Dublin Port Tunnel, a number of proposals for the Dublin metro, the possibility of putting the Luas "on stilts" at the Red Cow roundabout, and a range of penalty point offences as well as State-wide deployment of speed cameras.