Dr. Keith Walsh:

Perhaps I may explain how we got to the current situation. In March 2023, we were coming out of the Covid-19 pandemic and there was quite a backlog in a number of the services, including driver testing. At that time, the RSA submitted a request to the Department looking for sanction to hire additional driver testers on temporary contracts. A number of options were presented in the RSA business case for 40, 60 or 75 additional testers. The Department considered the matter and agreed to sanction 75 additional tester posts. In conjunction with the 130 permanent testers, the RSA sanction is for 205 driver testers. That sanction is still in place. One of the conditions of the sanction was that we would work with the authority to work out the long-term need for the service.