Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent)
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1287. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the reason for substantial delays in the issuing of driver licences to persons who have passed their test; if his attention has been drawn to the fact that many people are having to persuade insurance companies to issue successive temporary insurance cover policies to enable them to operate their vehicles during their waiting time; the current waiting times according to each NDLS licence-issuing centre; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14162/14]

Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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The operation of the National Driver Licensing Service (NDLS) is the statutory responsibility of the Road Safety Authority (RSA).  The front offices of the NDLS operate under contract to the RSA, and any performance matters related to them are a matter between the contractor and the RSA.  I have therefore referred the part of the Deputy's question relating to individual centres to the RSA for direct reply.  I would ask the Deputy to contact my office is a response has not been received within ten days.  On the more general matters raised by the Deputy, as I have indicated to the House before, there were some teething problems when the NDLS was first launched last October, and these caused unacceptable delays and the build-up of a backlog.  I met at the time with the then acting CEO of the RSA to discuss these matters, and the RSA put in place a number of measures to deal with the problems which had arisen.

I understand from the RSA that, overall, applications which are non-problematic - that is, where the application is fully in order and there is no need to contact the applicant again for clarification or further documentation - are being processed in eight to thirteen days.  The RSA has assured me that non-problematic applications will be processed within five to eight days from the beginning of April.