Eamon Ryan (Dublin Bay South, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

Most of the emails I get are probably on this issue. The Ceann Comhairle would be aware of this from his contact with the public. It is a huge issue, as I said earlier. The solution will be an early return to tests, but we have to take that in the context of public health advice. The job of public health, rightly, has been to minimise all social contact, particularly anything indoors. Being able to do the theory test, particularly online, will help to overcome that problem.

I expect it to be one of the services that will return soonest in order to allow us to address the backlog, not just by means of the traditional 15,000 theory tests a month but by a multiple thereof. Doing that number of tests will facilitate young people in getting back to work.

It will be the same with driving tests. That will take slightly longer because, obviously, one cannot do a driving test online. By definition, a driving test takes place on the road. In the previous opening-up period, we appointed an additional 40 testers. We will double that again, as needs be, in order to get the queues down.

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