I accept what the Deputy has said. The Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, is very conscious of this issue. As Deputy Brendan Smith knows, sanction was given for the recruitment of 75 additional driver testers, in addition to the 30 permanent testers who were sanctioned in July 2022. As of Friday 6 October, 29 additional testers have joined the Road Safety Authority and are either employed or in training, while another 13 are lined up for November. The net increase anticipated for the organisation by the end of December is 42 personnel.

However, as the Deputy has said, the current average waiting time for a candidate is 28.5 weeks. That is down from 30.4 weeks but is still far above the accepted target in the service level agreement of ten weeks. Demand is up and continues to go up. There are now 5,000 applications per week. Those are 5,000 people per week applying and looking for driving tests. We have to move on this.

See this speech in context