Paul Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I raise with the Leader the ongoing issue of long waiting times for driving tests. I base this on an article in today's The Journal under the headline, "Crackdown on long-held provisional licenses delayed over fears of longer test waiting lists".It refers to a damning statement and briefing from officials at the Department of Transport. They are saying openly that they have put on the long finger anything that may be introduced to clamp down on people who are driving on provisional licences for months, years and decades. The officials' fear is that if they clamp down on those people, the extra applications for a driving licence will push out further the waiting times for a driving test. We hear stories of people who wait for years for a driving test. Last year, the official waiting time was five months. We hear that the waiting time has now been reduced to 15 weeks. There is a service level agreement to the effect that the waiting time should be ten weeks.

In an environment where we have so many road tragedies, Department officials are massaging figures by ignoring the major problem of people driving on provisional licences. Those officials are saying they are going to ignore the problem in the short term until they get a handle on the waiting lists for a driving test. We are ignoring the fact that people have, in some cases, driven for decades on provisional licences because addressing the issue would cause a bigger problem for us if those people were to apply for a test, which would push out the waiting times. I was shocked that any official would make such an admission and that the massaging of figures is going on in an environment whereby we have unacceptable numbers of fatalities on our roads. We need to get everybody on a full driving licence.

I know this may not be an appropriate time to be looking for Ministers to come to the Chamber. Our chances of getting Ministers to come to the House in the short term may be limited and it may not happen. However, on the basis of this article alone, we need the Minister for Transport to come to the House to discuss the article and this important and serious issue.