Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)

As the Minister of State, Deputy Canney, will be well aware, a car is an absolute necessity in any rural part of Ireland now. In a number of parts of my constituency of Cork North-Central, a car is an absolute necessity because public transport is not available. The Minister of State will be just as inundated as I am by the number of people contacting us looking for representations to get their driving tests much faster than the predicted date. I concur with everything my colleague Deputy Ahern said in his speech. A man in Mallow has been waiting for nine months for a driving test and that is only an estimation of the date as opposed to actually getting a test. If someone gets a test date, there is no guarantee that the test will actually be fulfilled on that date. That is the issue we are having with driving tests across the country.

Yesterday, I spoke about the lack of apprentices in the fields that we so badly need, particularly plumbers, carpenters and tradespeople. The majority of these people also rely on the car as a means of transport because public transport is not freely available to them. However, these people cannot rely on the car if they cannot get to do a test. That is simply the bottom line here. A young man my own age living just outside Mallow contacted me. He wants to be a paramedic but unfortunately had to turn down the position of paramedic this year because his driving test had not been completed.

While the announcement of new testers to be added to the system is absolutely to be welcomed, we cannot wait until November 2025 to see the full allocation of testers. I appreciate that testers are to be added and the Minister of State might clarify that. It is very important that testers be added immediately and fast-tracked as quickly as possible. I appreciate the Minister of State will do everything in his power, but it is people of my age who are suffering from this. We cannot continue to have a flawed system. I would appreciate if the Government could fast-track the number of testers in the system while also importantly providing public transport in rural parts of our constituencies.

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