Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy for raising this very important matter. The National Driver Licence Service is the statutory responsibility of the Road Safety Authority and is provided under contract. The NDLS processes applications for learner permits and driver licences. The Covid-19 pandemic has had a profound effect on the provision of services, as the Deputy has outlined. As a result, a number of services ceased, including the national car testing service and driver testing, theory tests, and driver licence applications and renewals. The NDLS offices closed at the end of March 2020 due to the pandemic. Emergency regulations were brought in to provide for an extension of four months to the validity of driver licences and learner permits that expired between 1 March and 30 June 2020. This meant that a driver licence that expired on 20 March would not need to be renewed until 20 July. Similarly, a licence that expired on 15 July would not need to be renewed until 15 November.

In order to deal with the difficulties that arose due to the Covid-19 pandemic and to ensure consistency across EU member states, the European Commission eventually introduced a regulation in July 2020 to provide for an extension of seven months to the validity of driving licences that expired or would expire from 1 February to 31 August 2020. Member states could opt out of the regulation if they had already provided nationally for an extension. Ireland opted out under this provision as an extension of four months had already been granted in April up to the end of June and the RSA wanted to resume services as soon as possible. Learner permits, however, were further extended for an additional four months to the end of October. The reason for this extension was to ease the pressure on the NDLS to allow the prioritising of issuing of driver licences.

It should be noted that learner permits are provided under national law while driver licences come under EU law. There was no oversight in not extending driver licences at that time. The possibility of a further extension to the validity of driver licences along with that of learner permits was discussed with the RSA, but the authority believed, on the basis of its expectations at that point in time, that this would not be necessary. It is only fair to the authority to acknowledge that the Covid-19 crisis is an unprecedented and fluid set of circumstances in which it is difficult to be certain about future developments. While the reopened NDLS offices and the future expansion of online licence renewal options will eventually enable the RSA to clear the backlog, it is now clear that this will not happen quickly enough to facilitate the urgent needs of all applicants. The NDLS resumed services on a phased basis on Monday, 8 June 2020. All centres have reopened nationwide with the exception of part-time NDLS offices in Belmullet and Clifden, which are expected to reopen shortly. However, the NDLS is now operating at about 60% of its pre-Covid capacity. All appointments must be booked in advance and walk-in appointments are no longer available to ensure social distancing and compliance with occupational and public health requirements. It will naturally take some time for services to return to normal and, unfortunately, there are delays in acquiring appointments.

Since July the RSA has been working with its service providers to see how it can increase capacity while adhering to the return-to-work protocol. Options include extended opening hours, increasing the number of cases dealt with monthly, overtime and protective segregation barriers between booths. Having monitored the situation closely, it is now clear that the backlog cannot be dealt with in a timely manner while operating at 60% capacity and with an extended online system not yet in operation. Having considered the matter, I believe a further extension of driver licences in now appropriate.

An extension to driver licences is not possible without consent from the European Commission, in order to be compliant with EU law. My officials have now applied to the European Commission to seek agreement to a further extension for driver licences to ease the pressure on services.

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