The Road Safety Authority has been told “serious questions” arise from a review that found no free National Car Tests were due to customers who did not receive one toward the end of last year despite lengthy waiting times.
Under its customer charter, Applus, the company that operates the National Car Testing Service (NCTS), is obliged to provide free tests to customers waiting for longer than 28 days once certain criteria are met.
The charter had been suspended due to Covid-19 but reinstated last October. In January, it emerged no free tests had been given since its re-establishment, despite well publicised, lengthy wait times.
At an Oireachtas transport committee hearing early last month, RSA officials said an independent evaluation was under way to asses whether any motorists had qualified.
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On Monday, a spokeswoman said the analysis of free NCT tests in the last quarter of 2022 was complete “and it did not identify any customers who should have been entitled to a free test and who did not receive one. The analysis is not for publication.”
Fianna Fáil’s transport spokesman, James O’Connor, who had raised the issue in January on foot of information from Parc, the road safety advocacy group, described the finding as “mind-boggling” and said he would raise it in the Dáil.
“If it has turned out that nobody has been refunded [for a free test they were due] then there are serious questions that need to be answered,” he said.
The issue of staffing shortages, backlogs and consequent lengthy waiting times extending to months in many cases has continued to plague the car-testing service.
Applus could not be immediately reached for comment on Monday evening. In January, a spokeswoman said the NCTS had “been compliant with the customer charter”.
“The vast majority of customers continue to receive an appointment within four weeks of application,” the spokeswoman said. “Each booking request is evaluated and should they qualify for a free test, it is allocated.”
In 2015, 80,000 free tests were given out when test centres were unable to meet their deadline obligations.
At the recent Oireachtas committee meeting, Mr O’Connor asked how many customers received a free test last year following the reintroduction of the charter in October, a move he had questioned given the large backlog in customers.
The RSA’s chief operations officer, Brendan Walsh, told the committee no free tests had been issued that they were aware of.
“As we stand here at the moment, we do not see that there has been any free test required to be given out and we rely on [Applus country manager Mark] Synott and Applus for that information but we are carrying out a supervision to ensure that is the case.”
