NCT Centre proposal for Erris ruled because 'there's not enough vehicles'

An appeal to establish a NCT Centre in Erris has been ruled out.

Senator Mark Duffy was informed the decision is based on the fact there are not enough of vehicles in the area to support the facility.

Brendan Walsh, chief operations officer with the Road Safety Authority, relayed the news to the Ballina-based representative.

However, Mr. Walsh admitted the NCT may roll out temporary mobile inspection units to the Belmullet area in the future to cater for motorists who have to travel long distances to the nearest NCT centre.

He elaborated: "We are currently well advanced on what the next generation of the NCT will look like in 2030.

"We have a significant report that we commissioned from EY. My team and I fed into that report over a period. It runs to 300 pages, and is currently still in draft form.

"It relates to what we should be doing with the NCT. The NCT model has served this country very well, but it is 30 years old. We need to look at how we do it for the future.

"We need to look at the fact that the footprint of Ireland has changed. The population has increased. More people are living in rural Ireland and smaller towns and bringing them back to life. We need to be cognisant of that.

"One of the things we will be looking at - I am not saying we will do this, but we will certainly consider it - arises from the fact that we are aware that there are jurisdictions across Europe and the world that carry out mobile periodic technical inspection, PTI, tests.

"You can bring, for example, a 40-foot truck and trailer that has everything in it and you can have it in an area for a week and people can get their vehicles tested.

"That is a technology we do not have today. It is not under the current contract. We want to look at stuff like that in the future.

"I do not think that there would be a fundamental commercial benefit for the operator of the NCT, whoever that may be, from building a test centre in Belmullet.

"If you look a map, Belmullet to Ballina does not look that far, but I recently discovered, when my young lad was in the Gaeltacht out there, that it is a good drive.

"I experienced that gap at first-hand. It is not unique. Similar gaps exist in Kerry and Cork, and perhaps Donegal. We are cognisant of that.

"We want to ensure that people have the opportunity to be compliant with their vehicles. We will be looking at new technologies to see how we can do that."