Irish Driving Instruction Laws Boost Jobs

A successful Northern Ireland driver training school is expanding its services across the border - creating hundreds of additional job opportunities for instructors at the same time.

Roland Graham, proprietor of the Automan Driving School is expanding to the Republic of Ireland ahead of new laws for driving instructors and learner drivers, who - from June - must be accompanied by full licence holders, which was previously not a requirement.

Roland said: "All new and existing driving instructors in the Republic will need to be fully qualified by Jan 2009, so they can teach and receive payment, therefore keeping in line with the European Directive and as there are only just over 60 such qualified instructors - with the rest on temporary qualifications until January across the border - the scope for developing our business is huge."

He said that, having already a successful franchise package in Northern Ireland, with different options available to suit individual needs, an applicant who is successful after an initial interview can be provided with the highest quality training to becoming an Auto-man Franchisee.

"We have grade six training instructors available, which is the highest standard in the UK and also specialist advance driving trainers," he explained, also noting that the infrastructure is already in place for the expansion.

"Our call centre already deals with the Republic of Ireland, and has the capacity to handle up to 50,000 calls per month, so we can deal effectively with collating business for our franchisees," he explained.

'Auto-man' looks after both driver training for automatic 'auto' transmission vehicles as well as for 'man' or manual drive vehicles and will also be launching Auto-girl franchises too.

"There is a very high demand for female driving instructors and these type of franchises are very successful in the UK, and I expect the same in the Republic," concluded Roland.

See: www.auto-man.org