Steven Matthews (Wicklow, Green Party)
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321. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if his attention has been drawn to driver test applicants who have full licences from non-EU countries currently waiting to be allowed to take an Irish test; and if consideration has been given to extending the existing 12-month allowance by which they can drive on Irish roads without a new Irish licence to account for Covid-19-related delays in obtaining lessons and-or tests. [15020/21]

Hildegarde Naughton (Galway West, Fine Gael)
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There is a distinction between motorists with a foreign driving licence visiting Ireland and those living in Ireland. A person can drive on a foreign licence for up to a year as a visitor to Ireland. This provision is provided for under the 1949 Geneva Convention.

A person resident in Ireland must have an Irish or EU driving licence to drive here.

Irish driver licensing law operates within a framework of EU law. It is important to remember that driver licensing law exists to ensure that people licensed to drive on our roads meet high standards of safety. The standards for testing drivers are set at EU level.

As such, all EU driving licences are exchangeable when a person moves from one Member State to another. In the case of non-EU jurisdictions, we may make bilateral agreements on licence exchange. These agreements can be made only when the relevant authorities in each jurisdiction have studied and compared the two licensing regimes, so that each side can be satisfied that they are compatible. On the Irish side, this task is undertaken by the Road Safety Authority (RSA).

In the absence of an exchange agreement, we have no option but to ask people to go through the necessary steps to obtain an Irish licence, as per the applicable EU legislation.