Michael Collins (Cork South-West, Independent Ireland Party) | Oireachtas source

In August 2024, a headline in one of the newspapers stated that the longest waiting time for a driving test was 22 weeks. However, six months later, 22 weeks is now likely the shortest waiting time. During the Thirty-third Dáil, I spoke 11 times about the lengthy waiting times for driving tests. Now, in the Thirty-fourth Dáil, we are making no progress. The solution is clear. We need more testers in the centres working extended hours to clear the backlog.

I have several constituents facing significant delays. I know a young woman from west Cork who applied on 22 August 2024. She has been told she might receive an invitation to her test in April 2025. That is an astonishing eight-month wait, just for an invitation, which may be further delayed. This is causing immense strain on her family. This is unfair because she is a hardworking, progressive, young woman who wants to go to college and do a bit of work and get on with life. This Government has failed her miserably. The high cost of insurance for those without a full driving licence is also an issue. A young man, also from west Cork, is the sole carer for his mother. He applied in December and has been told that he might get an invitation in April 2025, which is also likely to be delayed. Another young man applied on 6 September 2024. He was supposed to receive an invitation in February 2025, but it is now February 2025 and he has yet to receive it. His father is seriously ill with cancer and he is the only driver in the family responsible for taking his father to hospital and doctor's appointments.

Adding further insult to injury, a Labour Party TD today suggested that drivers should take a theory test every time they renew their licences. These refresher courses, proposed to occur every ten years, would only add more pressure to an already strained system. It beggars belief that anyone could be so out of touch with their constituents that they would come up with that and think it a good idea. We need practical solutions, not additional burdens. The focus should be on increasing the number of testers and reducing waiting times to ensure our constituents can obtain their driving licences in a timely manner. If we want to talk about education, let us educate our young people. We should make sure it is in the curriculum going forward. We have the Bantry Driving Academy and there is probably none better in the country. The kids should be taken there. They are taken to France, Spain and across the world for skiing and rightly so. They are taken for swimming lessons, but no one cares about teaching the basics of how to drive a car and how to pass a theory test. It should be added to the school curriculum and they should not be able to leave school until they have passed it. If that will not be done, we are going nowhere. We are going backwards instead of ahead and these young people deserve that.

We have little public transport and we are fighting to keep what we have. We might have won the battle about the bus from Goleen this evening and I appreciate that if it is the case, but the bottom line is that we need to look at the condition of our roads. They are the real reasons for the accidents. I was in Ballinascarthy on Sunday. The road was flooded. The rivers on the roadside flooded. The TII will give orders from the top. Pencil pushers from Dublin tell people to cut their speed on national roads, basically to pull up the car and go at cycling pace all the way to west Cork. They should cut out the nonsense. Let them get off their butts and get the hell down to see the condition of the roads in my constituency. They are worse than appalling.

They are worse than third world roads. The rivers are bursting their banks out onto the road and there is no sign of a TII person to come out and see the condition of the roads on the main motorway into west Cork. I am telling the Minister of State that this is what has to be done. We have to call out the pencil pushers in this country and we have to deliver for our people who drive on the roads with great difficulty every day of their lives because of the condition of them.

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