ADI Union – History & Updates

During the Covid 19 pandemic the RSA continued to ignore ADIs and showing no respect for us as partners in road safety. We recieved no communication from them as to their thoughts on various forms of PPE. Their reply in basic terms was, you don’t work for us.

Many ADIs had enough. Ian Daly set up a WhatsApp group and a Facebook group to see if we could unite some how. There was some talk of a federation, that developed into talk of a union. Laura Broxson hosted a Zoom meeting with Unite, as they were showing interest in helping us. Dominic Brophy and Paul Murphy gathered Ian, Laura and myself, Darragh Dunne to form a five person steering committee.

As driving lessons began again some turned their focus to work. Dominic, Laura and Darragh pushed on. We achieved the necessary fifty members in a surprising short time in the view of Unite and then the only problem was having a meeting at a time when social distancing would not allow meetings. However that was achieved on the 4/8/20 when the first official committee was voted in, following this the union branch of Approved Driving Instructors in Unite was ratified. See the next post for more details.

A straw poll was done of the union members biggest issues. Among these were the following; Revision or removal of the check test topped the list, bringing log books into the 21st century, fixing the EDT syllabusF, problems with the stakeholders forum, access to toilets, the legality of testers getting out of the car while learners reverse & extensions to ADI permits.

Darragh, www.adidriving.ie

Category: By Darragh Dunne ADI