Seán Crowe (Dublin South West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The difficulty people right across the State have in accessing a driving test, particularly those who rely on the test centre in Tallaght, is something I have raised in this Chamber not just for years, but over several Dáileanna. I remember raising the fact the waiting list in Tallaght had passed the 5,000 mark and urging that immediate action be taken before things completely spiralled out of control. That was with the then Minister, Shane Ross, back in 2020. I remember raising the matter with the then Minister, Eamon Ryan, when the number passed 10,000, and here we are now and there are over 18,000 people waiting in Tallaght. That is a population the size of Clonmel or Malahide, all waiting on a test in one centre.

Will I be raising this at Easter, when it reaches 20,000? It is a fair question. I want answers on when the Government will clear this. When I asked Eamon Ryan, who talked about new testers, he could not tell me whether he would be able to deal with the backlog. Clearly, there is a need for an additional test centre in south Dublin. Dún Laoghaire was the second highest when Eamon Ryan was in office.

The population has exploded, as we have heard, in the last 20 years but there are even new towns since the last centre was opened. As the population grows, the provision of centres must grow with it, otherwise there will be bottlenecks and that is just not common sense.

Additional testers and centres are welcome, but that only allows us to tread water. We have had temporary testers in the past and that only slowed the rising numbers. It did not do anything to break the backlog. We should encourage the use of public transport as the first option but that is not always a practical solution as we have heard tonight. If people want to get a job in Intel, for instance, it might take a half an hour drive on a good day but it takes about two and a half hours to get from Tallaght as there is no direct route.

That is the problem right across the board. We have to stop this discrimination against drivers. The Minister of State needs to give us answers as to how he is going to solve this when he gets a chance.

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