Shane Ross (Dublin Rathdown, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this important issue.

I would like to put on record my personal appreciation for the support given by Sinn Féin to the traffic legislation before the House. We are on the same page about saving lives.

I acknowledge what the Deputy has raised here today is a real problem. It is something which is being addressed. I acknowledge as well that it is not yet resolved. The driver testing service has seen an increase of almost 20% in the levels of driving test applications over the past four years. This, coupled with the retirement of driver tester staff, has meant that the waiting times for customers for driving tests have increased.

Driving tests are delivered across 52 test centres nationally. The objective of the RSA is to have a national average waiting time of no longer than ten weeks. The current national average waiting time for a driving test is 12.5 weeks. The RSA continues to monitor capacity against demand and deploys driver testers to best meet the demand across all test centres.

The current average waiting time for a driving test in the Wilton test centre in Cork is 16 weeks. The longest waiting time for a test at the Cork centre is 23 weeks. This longest wait time may be due to an applicant applying for a test before completing the required driver training of 12 lessons, or the test maybe on hold for medical or payment reasons. That is consistent with what the Deputy said when he mentioned six months, which is 26 weeks. The Deputy is probably right about that figure which he produced.

The following table gives an overview of test applications at the Cork driving test centre:

Cork (Wilton) Test Centre — Applications on hand as at 9 May 2018

The Road Safety Authority, RSA, employs 97.49 full-time equivalent driver testers. My Department has sanctioned an additional 31 driver testers since October 2016, and to date, 23 are now conducting driving tests. The remaining eight testers will be recruited in the coming months. Sanction was given to the RSA to replace retired testers as required, and my Department and the RSA are examining the long-term requirements for driver tester numbers to ensure that the authority can meet future demand.

The RSA is undertaking other initiatives to increase capacity to deliver extra driving tests. These include the delivery of 120 extra overtime tests per participating driver tester. A total of 46 driver testers have completed the delivery of the extra tests over the past seven months, and this has yielded 5,520 tests. Other initiatives include a reduction in the number of applicant no-shows at the driving test, with 10,637 applicants having been contacted, resulting in 2,053 tests being cancelled in advance that would have been lost due to no-shows and these tests being made available to other test applicants. Another initiative is a reduction in non-conducted driving tests whereby, closer to test appointment dates, the RSA, in an effort to reduce non-conducted driving tests, communicates to test applicants via text messaging and via applicants' approved driving instructors key messages regarding the vehicle and document requirements. The new driving test booking system is yet another initiative. The RSA plans to introduce a new test booking system that will give test applicants much more control over their booking and appointment choice. A tender process has been completed and it is envisaged that the new system will be in place by mid-2019.

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