Government to insist on private driving test plan

The Government has restated that it is committed to using a private company to reduce the waiting list for driving tests, with the Minister for Transport Mr Cullen saying it remains the only viable option.

The Taoiseach added his support to Mr Cullen's view when he told the Dáil last night outsourcing was needed to cut the ten-month waiting list of 130,000 provisional drivers.

"We cannot deal with the problem within the system, we need to outsource. We have the capacity and the resources to do that, even on a temporary basis, and we need to come to a conclusion," Mr Ahern said.

To use a private firm the Government must find a way around a ruling by the Civil Service Arbitration Board two weeks ago that said outsourcing "core civil service work" is contrary to the terms of Sustaining Progress.

And while neither the Taosieach nor Mr Cullen have specified how they can circumvent such a ruling, it is understood the Government is now looking to the end of Sustaining Progress in June before returning to the proposal.

Asked would he pursue outsourcing when the existing pay deal ends, Mr Cullen replied: "That will have to be brought to clarity in a couple of months anyway. rather than wait that while, I would hope that we can move on this issue very quickly.

"The unions could come back to me and say that although they won on a technical point perhaps they might consider moving very quickly on this. Sustaining progress was not interpreted the way everybody meant it to be," Mr Cullen said.

Adding to the support for outsourcing was the Minister for Finance who said yesterday the Government was keen to have an outsourcing provision in any new pay deal.

Responding to a Dáil question from Fine Gael's Olivia Mitchell on the waiting list yesterday, Mr Cowen said greater flexibility was needed from public servants.

"In appropriate circumstances contracting out is one of the tools which can make an important contribution," Mr Cowen said. This dispute over outsourcing has taken more than 12 months of discussion and arbitration to reach this point. During that time the waiting list had lengthened.

Describing the ten-month average wait for a driving test as utterly unacceptable, Mr Cullen said: "Contracting out as one of the ways of resolving this still remains on the agenda. As far as I am concerned, it is the only way I believe we can fully resolve this."

The unions, including Impact and the CPSU, have consistently said that outsourcing is unnecessary. They think testers using an overtime scheme can deliver an additional 50,000 tests a year. At a meeting with Mr Cullen last week the unions called for more driver testers to be hired on short-term contracts rather than using a private company.

Mr Cullen has said outsourcing was the only option because the Department of Transport could not hire additional driver testers "because the system that is in place is overloaded".

He said the system proposed by the preferred candidate to carry out the outsourcing, understood to be NCT Ltd, was a "much more modern and efficient system to cope with people cancelling and to be able to bring people in immediately.

"We are not doing that in the current system and the number of tests the individual driver testers are carrying out are very low," he said.

The unions disagree with this view and argue that the systems are the responsibility of the Department.

The number of people driving under a provisional licence exceeded 400,000 for the first time last year and has grown by 14 per cent in two years.

The number of driver testers will be increased next month when seven former Department of Agriculture staff, retrained as driver testers, and ten new testers start work.