Mr. Brendan Walsh:

I recently attended a conference of our European and global colleagues and many of them are seeing the same trend we have seen, where there is a significant demand. That demand is being driven by the simple fact of population growth in Europe, predominantly whether it is through migrant workers or natural population increases. It is a challenge. We engage with our colleagues in the UK as well and they told us the same thing. We have made significant inroads over the past two years to try to manage the service.

The number of applications we saw in 2023 versus 2022 was up 14%. In the year to date, it is up 10%. Our testing capability over the 2022 to 2023 period increased by 11.6%. This year, it is up 30% on last year. We are starting to turn the curve, but we still have much more work to do. From the number of people who are applying for learner permits or on their essential driver training journeys, we can see there are more people in the pipeline. We are working with the Department on ensuring that we have a properly resourced service to meet the needs of a growing population.