Ciarán Ahern (Dublin South West, Labour)

Before I begin, I take the opportunity to offer my heartfelt condolences to the family and friends of Garda Kevin Flatley, as well as to his colleagues in An Garda Síochána. It is an unimaginable tragedy that his life would be taken as he was carrying out his duties in the interests of making our roads safer. Reading the tributes from those who knew him and worked with him, we really get a sense of what a thoroughly decent man he was. My thoughts are with all of those who loved him. Ar dheis Dé go raibh a anam dílis.

It is not that long ago that we were discussing this issue on foot of a constructive motion brought forward by Deputy Daly and Sinn Féin. It was a practical motion. It was reasonable and constructive and the Government did not oppose it, which was welcome. Reading back over the transcript of that debate, though, there was a noticeable absence of any sort of commitment from the Minister or his junior Ministers to implement any of the calls made in the motion. They were not calls asking the Ministers or the Government to move the sun, moon and stars. They were simply asking the Government to take responsibility and act to address the backlog and waiting times for driving tests. I am happy to be corrected if I am wrong, but the only squeak I have heard from the Department on this issue in the more than two months since that debate was a single press release entitled "Minister Canney instructs the Road Safety Authority to address Driver Testing delays". I hope he would do that.

The Minister of State's press release referred to an RSA plan to bring wait times back to ten weeks by November next. The junior Minister told the RSA to review the plan and bring the date forward. I am certainly glad he is treating the issue with urgency now. I appreciate the clarity he has brought today stating that the waiting times will be brought down or that the aim is to bring them down to a ten-week target by September. Forgive me if I do not hold my breath on that. We heard from previous transport Ministers that this issue would be sorted by particular dates and then those targets were missed. We would then be given another date and that would also be missed. The first of these promises came in April 2023, when the then Minister of State, Deputy Chambers, said that wait times would be down to ten weeks by the end of quarter 1 of 2024. Two years later, however, matters have become much worse.

Even since we discussed this issue in late February, the national average waiting time has increased from 24 weeks to 27 and a half weeks, which does not bode particularly well. As we know, in some places, learner drivers have to wait far longer, including in Tallaght in my constituency. At the test centre there, waiting lists are the longest in the country, standing at a whopping 43 weeks. This means that about 18,500 people in Tallaght are waiting approximately ten months each for a test. This is just not good enough. This is having real, tangible knock-on effects for my constituents in Dublin South-West. I have been contacted by numerous people who are affected by the backlog and the wait times, as we all have been across the Dáil in our various constituencies.

One young constituent who got in touch with my office has a mother with Alzheimer's disease who is no longer able to drive. My constituent has not been able to help her because he is still waiting for a driving test. There is a financial impact for this young lad as well because having already spent a considerable amount of money on the mandatory 12 driving lessons, in circumstances where he has no one to accompany him in the car and while he is waiting so long for a driving test, he is spending more money getting a few supplementary lessons to make sure the rules of the road, etc., remain fresh in his head before he does his driving test in ten months' time.

Another constituent was in touch to say that he had applied for a driving test in mid-April and had been given an estimated test date of 12 January 2026. This constituent is one of the tens of thousands of adults stuck living at home with his parents. In his contact with my office, he was keen to stress that he did not usually get upset by things he could not control, such as the housing crisis, but the massive backlog in waiting times was really getting to him.

This is not just about having a driver's licence for the sake of it. We are seeing people missing out on job opportunities and students dropping out of college because of the lack of decent public transport options. Much-needed apprentices, those who will be working and helping us to get out of the present housing crisis, need vehicles to get to and from jobs and to carry equipment. They are forced to either pause or drop out of their apprenticeships altogether because they cannot get driver licences.

There are other knock-on effects, some that are particularly concerning like the impact on our paramedic services, the haulage sector and public transport provision. Ultimately from a transport-emissions perspective, we need to see public transport and active travel being the preferred and most accessible transport option for the majority of people, but regrettably we are not there yet. Issues remain over connectivity, accessibility and reliability of our public transport networks. Despite a very welcome increase in Local Link buses brought in by the last Government there is still a lack of public transport in some part parts of the country and this needs to be urgently addressed.

As it stands, the reality is that many people are forced to rely on private car use through no fault of their own and so it is imperative that these wait times are sorted out. Investment in the RSA to help it address this issue as well as the Government's plans for investment in new road infrastructure must be done in tandem with significant investment in public transport and active travel infrastructure and services. So that we are not so reliant on private car use, those options, those alternatives, need to be available to everyone.

As the Minister of State alluded to, for-profit, third-party apps are popping up telling users when and where tests have been cancelled, effectively allowing them to skip the queue for online places but at a price. I welcome that the RSA is aware of this and is hopefully clamping down on it. I have concerns about people's personal data being shared with these anonymous and unaccountable third-party applications run by private companies. There is some merit in the RSA, itself, offering some service like this. There were similar issues with the online booking system for immigration permissions and visas in about 2016 and these issues were resolved successfully by the Department of Justice. Perhaps some lessons can be learned from that because it is clearly not an efficient use of resources if test slots go unfilled, especially given the current backlogs and waiting times. The last thing we want is a slot not being used because of a last-minute cancellation. While there is some place for these real-time updates to people, I would much prefer if the State were giving these updates in real time rather than relying on for-profit private companies that we cannot trust doing it.

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