8 March 2023
By Tom Collins
tom@TheCork.ie
Fianna Fáil TD James O’Connor has called for the contract with the NCT operator not to be renewed over the “serious mismanagement” of the testing service.
File photo of cars
The Cork East TD said the Government must “fix” the unacceptable delays in the car testing service.
“There’s a backlog of 400,000 vehicles nationally now as a consequence of serious mismanagement within Applus and the RSA’s oversight of that,” Deputy O’Connor told the Dáil on Wednesday.
“Does the government any plan to deal with this? Are they looking at potentially terminating that contract when that window of opportunity comes up to allow for a review of the NCT system in Ireland?
“There are many people now on the road who are technically driving vehicles that have not got NCTs and are waiting significant periods for their test where their NCTs have expired and it’s technically an offence.
“Is this something the Government will look at and try and fix?”
Taoiseach Leo Varadkar, in response, described the backlog in the system as a “real problem”.
“There is a delay in NCT tests. We’re working with the contractor to get on top of it,” Mr Varadkar said.
“I don’t want to say anything about renewing or terminating contracts here, that wouldn’t be right, but I’ll ask Minister Chambers or Minister Ryan to come back to the Deputy about where we are on that.
“It’s something we’re aware of and working on.”
