Kieran O'Donnell (Limerick City, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank Mr. Waide. I will take the first Fine Gael slot.

I go back to Mr. Waide's point that there will not be enough driver testers. There are 138 driver testers in place at the moment and there will be another 40 by the end of June to meet the commitment of an average waiting list time of ten weeks. According to my analysis of the figures, there are roughly 68,000 people awaiting tests, 5,670 of whom have appointments as essential workers. There are a further 30,720 who are awaiting the approved driver test hours from instructors. There are just short of 100,000 people in the mix awaiting driver tests. In addition, there are 80,000 people awaiting driver theory tests.

The waiting list is 100,000 and the existing number of RSA testers is between 138 and 140, which will increase to 178. If the RSA runs with existing testers, how many weeks will it take? I did a quick calculation and I reckon it would take about 20 weeks. How many additional testers does the RSA require, beyond the 178, to get the average waiting time down to ten weeks?