Joe O'Brien (Dublin Fingal, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I am replying on behalf of the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, who would like to thank the Deputy for raising this important matter.

The operation of all roadworthiness testing in the State, including the National Car Testing Service, is the statutory responsibility of the Road Safety Authority, RSA. It is important to highlight that quarter 1 is always the busiest time of the year for the NCT service. This is because the date of the first registration of a vehicle determines the subsequent roadworthiness test due dates. Long-term trends demonstrate a strong preference among vehicle purchasers to buy at the beginning of the year, with January and February the busiest months for registrations and high demand for NCT appointments accordingly.

Coinciding with this typically busy period is the need to manage the continuing impact of Covid-19 on staff availability at NCT test centres. In January this year, the Minister of State, Deputy Naughton, was advised of a higher rate of test cancellations than usual. In January and February 2022, there were approximately 36,000 test appointment cancellations, of which 11,400 were cancelled by the NCTS. This is broadly in line with 2021 figures, which saw approximately 28,000 cancellations, with 7,800 of these cancelled by the NCTS. These figures include very high levels of customer no-shows and late cancellations, undoubtedly as a result of Covid-19. This has led to an average lead time for an appointment of just under 21 days in this quarter to date. Before the pandemic, the average waiting time was up to 12 days.

However, the NCTS is working hard to ensure that all customers can book their vehicle in for testing in a timely fashion and significant progress has been made in addressing this backlog. Currently, all 49 NCT test centres in Ireland are fully operational and the NCTS has taken a number of steps to provide additional capacity at test centres in the immediate term, including offering overtime to staff and running a longer shift schedule than normal. This is in addition to ongoing efforts to improve the efficiency of service delivery and recruit additional staff, including securing agreement from the RSA to develop a proposal for an alternative resourcing model to provide semi-skilled staff capacity to complete machine-led elements of the inspection process. This will be considered further in the coming months with a view to establishing a pilot scheme.

NCT test appointment slots are released continually across all centres and many slots also become available through cancellations or rescheduling of appointments. Some customers may only find dates that are beyond the due date for their NCT, as the Deputy mentioned. If a customer requires an appointment sooner than those available online, they should contact the NCTS directly or place themselves on the priority waiting list online. The NCTS will do its best to accommodate all customers on the priority list within 28 days of application. Currently approximately 18,000 people are on the priority waiting list, with 32,500 full tests carried out each week.

The NCTS has also advised that customers can book a test appointment up to 90 days in advance of their test due date without affecting the validity period of the certificate issued, which allows them to ensure a suitable test date at their preferred centre and avoid incurring the risk of delays during busy times.

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