Pearse Doherty (Donegal, Sinn Fein)

As my colleague Deputy Mac Lochlainn stated, people are waiting seven months for driving tests. As of April, 83,000 people were on the waiting list. Matters are getting worse because 10,000 more joined the list in the past three months. This is simply out of control, and the Government is sitting on its hands while it is happening.

In some cases, the impact on these individuals is immense. I have been contacted by a young woman who was born and bred in an Irish-speaking community in the Gaeltacht. Tá grá aici don teanga agus tá sí ag iarraidh a bheith fostaithe ag obair leis an teanga ó thaobh na teilifíse de agus a leithéid. She wants to work in the Irish language sector in television. She was offered a job, but she needs to travel for 25 minutes each day in order to access that job. She has a car, which she has been able to pay for, and insurance, which she has been able to pay for, but she needs an accompanying driver because she has not passed her driving test. She has to wait seven months. She has been left in a situation where she cannot take up that job. She will likely have to leave the Gaeltacht area in which she lives and move to a city where she can access transport in order to travel to and from work. It is absolutely ridiculous.

This is not an issue that fell out of the sky or happened overnight. It has been going on for a significant period. What we see are not improvements; we see the situation getting worse. It is no wonder that the Garda reported a 95% increase in the number of detections of unaccompanied drivers. This is because drivers simply either cannot go to work or they have to sit at home, so they are taking a risk and are getting caught by the Garda. Obviously, it is a risk they should not be taking. If there was an accident, they would not be insured. It is absolutely ridiculous. Are they doing this out of malice? Are they trying to beat the system or defy the rules? No, they are not. They want to drive legally. They want driving tests, and the State is preventing them from getting them within a reasonable period. It is not acceptable, and the Government needs to get its finger out and act on this. We need to give certainty to people about when this issue will be resolved and when it is likely that they will be able to sit their tests within the normal period.

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