Carol Nolan (Laois-Offaly, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The waiting time for driving tests is totally unacceptable, as the Minister of State acknowledged. He also acknowledged that the RSA was brought before the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Transport and Communications in September and stated there is now an expectation to see improvement. I ask that it be brought back in if there are no improvements in the next couple of months. There is a service level agreement. We are not getting a service that is fit for purpose. I have many constituents, particularly young people, who want to work, have to get to work or cannot take up apprenticeships because they have not yet passed the driving test and do not have a date for a test. It is totally unacceptable. It is still bedlam. Despite the small improvements, it is not good enough and does not cut it. The RSA is way behind where it should be. It is being paid tens of millions of euro and we are not getting a service that is fit for purpose. I ask that the RSA be monitored and brought back before the transport committee in to show us what improvements have been made. The new year is a reasonable timeframe for doing so.

There is also a clear value-for-money issue, with this statutory State agency not being able to fulfil some of the most basic requirements regarding its operation. The waiting times for drivers are obviously part of this. This issue disproportionately impacts rural learner drivers because we do not have the luxury of public transport services outside our doors. Public transport is non-existent in many areas. Cars, and access to cars, are not just a necessity for most people but a key factor in maintaining economic, educational and social well-being. It is entirely unacceptable that, as our motion states, the number of eligible learner drivers awaiting an invitation to book their driving tests has increased by 61% over the past year, reaching a total of 71,554 individuals. That is up from 44,545 in October 2022.

I also want to address one of the other issues that we have identified, namely, the need to maintain a service that can be accessed with cash. Just yesterday, a constituent contacted me to say that the National Driver Licence Service, NDLS, is not accepting cash as a form of payment. My constituent made the valid point that although the NDLS lists alternative forms of payment, only one of these is accessible using cash, and this is what she termed a bogus method. This issue needs to be investigated by the Oireachtas committee.

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