I move:
That Dáil Éireann:
notes that:
— the current National Driver Licence Service (NDLS) contract, which was put in place in 2021 while the attention of the body politic was diverted by the Covid-19 pandemic, no longer offers a walk-in service, the walk-in service having originally ceased temporarily in March 2020 to ensure the safety of the service's staff and of the public using the service during the Covid-19 pandemic;
— the Road Safety Authority (RSA) awarded the contract to the Swiss company SGS, which operates 34 offices, some of them on a part-time basis, over An Post which has a network of 950 post offices;
— a verified MyGovlD account, which requires a Public Services Card (PSC), is needed to avail of the online service despite a previous Data Protection Commission investigation into the legality of the PSC which found that there was no lawful basis for a person to be told they needed the card for anything other than accessing social welfare or benefits;
— cash payments are not accepted at NDLS offices; and
— insufficient staffing has led to a further diminution of the service provided at NDLS offices and to those seeking to book an appointment at those offices by telephone; and
calls on the Government to instruct the RSA:
— to set up an open, competitive tendering process in accordance with national and European Union procurement rules to provide a walk-in service at multiple centres across the State;
— to ensure that future contracts require the service provider to be sufficiently staffed to provide an adequate service and to enforce existing contractual provisions ensuring an adequacy of service;
— to ensure that all NDLS offices accept cash payments; and
— to discontinue the requirement for applicants availing of online services to provide a PSC.
I thank the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, for coming in to take this debate. At the outset, has it been indicated that the Government is putting forward an amendment to this motion? I hope it will be accepted. I will believe that if and when a vote is called.
In regard to the current national driver licence, to start at the beginning, until 2013 people obtained their driver licences in the same way as they obtained their motor tax, that is, at their local authority offices. In 2013 the local authorities, which were the issuing authorities for driver licences were replaced with a sole issuing authority, that being the Road Safety Authority. The Road Safety Authority in its wisdom decided to tender for three contracts, one of which was the front office service where people went in to give their information and hope that they would obtain the licence. The other two contracts were for the back office to go through the data etc. and the third was for physically printing or making the driver licence.
At the time, the Road Safety Authority awarded the contract to the Swiss service company, SGS, to be the front office provider. One Minister who sat around Cabinet at the time had a certain crisis of conscience thereafter. We are not aware that he had any at the time when he subsequently announced that that was a contract that should have been given to An Post. However, it was not given to An Post, but to this Swiss company which set up 33 offices at the time. It has very recently announced a 34th office.
There is now a difficulty, according to information the Minister of State confirmed to me in the Dáil at the end of the week before last when I brought to her attention the difficulties in obtaining appointments at the Ennis office. She confirmed that the walk-in service, which previously had been discontinued during Covid-19 based on health and safety advice to ensure there was as little contact as possible between people, was completely discontinued when a new contract was awarded in 2021. I have worries about that on a variety of levels. The first is that it appears to me, and I do not think it is unfair to suggest, that Covid-19 was used as a cover for the downgrading of a public service. The second is the lack of a walk-in service per se. People are still able to go to an National Driver Licence Service, NDLS, office, of which there are now 34 in the country although some of them, including some in the Minister of State's own constituency, operate on a part-time basis, but they have to make an appointment in advance. To make an appointment, you have either to go online, or ring a number. I have previously highlighted the difficulties that my constituents in Clare had in booking that ten-minute slot. One woman in her 80s spent 90 minutes on the phone and people in my office spent 45 minutes on the phone. I thought this might be unique to Ennis but since I raised this issue with the Minister of State it has come to my attention that this is a widespread problem throughout the country.
In the space of less than ten years we have gone from a situation where anybody was able to walk into his or her local authority office and get his or her driver licence, to people not being even able to book an appointment in a public service. What ought to be a public service is no longer public because it is being provided by a Swiss logistics company, SGS, and it is no longer really a service. If you cannot book your appointment, and I do not think it unfair to say that if you have to spend almost an hour, or in excess of an hour, on the telephone trying to book a ten-minute appointment, it is inadequate. I note the Minister of State is agreeing with me on at least that much, this morning.
The other thing is you can renew your licence online completely but to do that, you need a public services card. The Minister of State will be aware that during the previous Government's term of office the Data Protection Commissioner carried out an investigation into the legality of the public services card and in particular using it as a basis or requiring it to provide services other than social welfare services, and found that there was no lawful basis for that. There was a big brouhaha about it. The Government took a case against the Data Protection Commissioner which was subsequently compromised or settled between the parties. To the best of my knowledge, that Data Protection Commissioner finding that it is unlawful to request a public services card for anything other than social welfare services, stands. Regardless of her view on whether it stands or not, I ask the Minister of State to point to me somewhere in legislation which says that a public services card is required in order to renew a driver licence. The public services card is not mentioned anywhere in the Road Traffic Acts and they are what govern the granting of driver licences.
Why are we making it so difficult to renew driver licences? That is what I would like to know. Why are we moving State services in this direction which is essentially to trim them, to privatise them and make them less accessible to the citizens that we are supposed to be serving? Those are my concerns. When the contract was being renewed in 2021, I was not aware of it at the time and it probably slipped under the radar for many people because of what was going on at the time, but An Post again sought the tender. An Post has several hundred offices throughout the country, with 950 post offices. I accept that it might not be able to provide a driver licence renewal service in all of them, but I expect it could provide the service in many of them. Yet it was passed over again in favour of this Swiss logistics company which has 34 offices. We are talking about saving An Post and about moving as many services as possible into An Post. We criticise the banks for taking services away from our main streets and the difficulties that entails for sections of our population who may not be good with computers or who live in an area where there is not a good broadband service or who simply want to have a service provided face-to-face and yet, we seem to be doing exactly the same thing.
The last issue I wish to bring to the Minister of State's attention is one that I brought up before, which is that SGS is now refusing to accept cash, at least in Ennis and I do not know if this is nationwide. Again, is there any lawful basis for that? I can accept it, if it was a temporary measure during Covid-19 not to accept cash, but why on earth can it not accept cash now? What is the problem? It has a limited number of offices, it can lodge the cash at the end of the day. The office in Ennis is in a shopping centre. We are not talking about huge amounts of cash whereby the office would become a target. We are seeing a complete downgrading of the service and it concerns me.
Another thing that irks me about driving licences is the countries from which one can have their driving licence recognised. It is countries that one might expect: Australia, Isle of Man, Jersey, South Africa, New Zealand, the UK and Northern Ireland, of course, as well as some provinces of Canada, leaving out Quebec, Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.
What concerns me slightly more is the 50 states of the United States. We have much interaction with the United States. We have many people moving over and back. It is not in the motion and I accept that, but can the Minister of State explain the rationale in her summing up as to why we do not recognise driving licences from the United States? The UK recognises driving licences from some countries but not from others and if it does not recognise the licence, then a person has to do the practical and theory tests before getting a licence. That is all quite rational. However, in respect of the countries from where Ireland does not recognise driving licences, on top of that, even if you have been driving ten or 20 years in another country and you come to Ireland, you also have to do all the lessons. That is a racket. People who have been driving for 20 years and had a licence in another country should be able to sit the test and then they will either pass or fail the test. The idea that they would have to do all of the lessons, even if they had been driving for most of their adult lives in another jurisdiction, makes very little sense. I would like to know what the rationale to that is.
I urge the Minister to accept this motion because of the diminution of services in the driving licences renewal area.