RSA to spend €6m on new logbooks and booklets for learner drivers
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The Road Safety Authority (RSA) is to spend close to €6m on logbooks and information booklets for learner drivers and motorcyclists.
The authority, which currently holds responsibility for administering Ireland’s licencing and driver testing systems, has tendered for around 240,000 of the documents over two years.
Essential driver training (EDT) and initial basic training (IBT) logbooks and information booklets are distributed to all learner drivers and motorcyclists when commencing the process to obtain a licence.
The logbooks are used to maintain records of the minimum 12 one-hour lesson sessions undertaken by all learner drivers before they can take their full test.
The books for drivers are to be delivered directly to approved driver instructors (ADI) via the RSA’s online portal, the agency said, while all motorcycle logbooks are ordered directly via the RSA itself.
The documents are not expected to take a different format to that currently being accessed by learners, with the successful tenderer only required to produce the new logbooks as specified by the RSA, which owns the artwork used at present.
The authority has been under increasing pressure over the past 24 months as the number of road deaths on Irish roads increased to worrying levels, before returning to lower comparative levels in the summer.
Despite the rash of fatalities seen in the early months of 2024, the number of deaths recorded in the year to date, 165, is five fewer than was seen across the same time period in 2023.
Last month, RSA chief executive Sam Waide claimed the reduction in fatalities was in part attributable to the introduction of average speed cameras on accident blackspot roads across the country earlier in 2024.
However, despite the reduction in fatalities, the Government has pressed forward with plans to reform the RSA.
Last month, a “radical transformation” of the organisation was announced by the Government, which would see the authority split into two agencies, one focused on the delivery of services, and the other responsible for road safety initiatives such as media campaigns.
Mr Waide was informed by the Department of Transport in November that in future the RSA would need to seek “specific approval” from the department before carrying out any such campaigns in future.
The RSA has also faced criticism for its procurement practices this year, after it emerged it spent €3.7m in 2023 on the commissioning of five separate contracts outside of public procurement rules.
In total, €3.7m was spent on five contracts outside of public procurement guidelines, with a note from Comptroller and Auditor General, Seamus McCarthy, saying the RSA’s accounts had shown “significant expenditure where the procedures did not comply”.