LIMERICK city councillors have expressed concern at plans to have all driver licences issued by one central licencing authority. At their meeting this week, members were told that from next September, the issuing of licences will be the responsibility of the Road Safety Authority and future licences will take the form of a plastic card that can be scanned electronically. Expressing concern over the move, Cllr Maurice Quinlivan (SF) said that when the government centralised other services such as the student grants, it didn’t work very well. When you lose the local knowledge, it’s a problem”, he said.
This was also the view of Cllr John Gilligan (Ind) who said that when government disbanded the local health boards, the country was left with “a service you wouldn’t find in the third-world”.
Cllr Diarmuid Scully (Fine Gael) pointed out that the decision to centralise the licencing process had already been taken. “It’s a requirement linked to the fact that the EU driving licence is to become an electronic card,” he said.
