Fórsa trade union, which represents driver testers at the Road Safety Authority (RSA) has instructed testers that from Monday, they should only conduct a driving test in a vehicle carrying a valid NCT.

Fórsa continues to seek a reversion to the requirement that cars presented by a customer for a driving test require a valid NCT certificate, a requirement which was temporarily suspended due to delays caused by Covid.

The RSA has continued to instruct driver testers to waive this requirement if a car presented for a test does not have a valid NCT certificate.

The union has advised the RSA that the instruction has been issued due to serious health and safety concern for the union’s driver tester members.

Fórsa has been raising the NCT issue with the RSA since November 2022, and the matter remains unresolved despite a number of engagements over the period.

Fórsa also raised the matter at the State Agencies Oversight Body meeting held last week and subsequently issued a written instruction to driver tester members to conduct driving tests only in vehicles carrying valid NCT certificate.

In a letter issued to RSA management, Fórsa Assistant General Secretary Derek Kelleher said:

“This is a health and safety issue for our members, as the vehicle a customer presents for their test becomes the RSA staff member's workplace.

“The only way of ensuring that a vehicle is safe and roadworthy is when it has a valid NCT certificate. Without this, it is difficult to ascertain the health and safety risks to our members if they are forced to carry out their work in a vehicle that does not have the certificate.

“Ultimately, they do not know what risk this poses to their safety, and limiting tests to vehicles that have a valid NCT helps mitigate the risk.

“Instructing our members to only conduct a driving test in a vehicle with a valid NCT is a reasonably practicable way of increasing their safety at work and aligns with the General Principles of Prevention within the Safety, Health and Welfare at Work Act 2005,” he said.

Fórsa had advised driver tester members last November, on health and safety grounds, to adhere to the RSA protocol that all vehicles presented for a driving test must display a valid NCT certificate.