James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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270. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if he will examine the driver licence application by a person (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [26447/21]

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. For non-residents, currently under the Convention on Road Traffic 1949 (Geneva Convention), drivers from Contracting States carrying a valid driver’s licence can drive on each other’s roads for up to a year when visiting. If a person is resident in Ireland, they must have an Irish/EU driving licence. 

As Ireland does not have a driving licence exchange agreement with Mexico, holders of a Mexican driving licence are required to go through the process of obtaining an Irish licence as set out in national and EU legislation. This is a matter of public safety.

People with a full but non-exchangeable licence go through the normal driver learning process but can avail of the shorter Essential Driver Training of 6 lessons instead of the usual 12, and they do not have to be a learner for the usual minimum of 6 months before taking a driving test.

The Driver Theory Test has not been deemed to be an essential service and remains closed. Updates around the resumption of tests will be published on www.theorytest.ie. The Road Safety Authority (RSA) recognise that it will take time to meet the demand of the backlog that has built up and restore waiting times to their pre-Covid level. The Authority is engaging with its service provider to examine ways of increasing the number of tests within the current health constraints for when services resume, such as:

- an increase in capacity within the service, which will see the number of tests increase from an average pre Covid19 output of 15,000 tests per month to 50,000 per month. This will help significantly to tackle the backlog of customers.

- delivery of an online driver theory test service. The rollout of online theory tests for cars is planned for June 2021. There will be a limit on the number of customers that can avail of the service during the initial rollout phase, but work is ongoing to make online services more widely available towards the end of 2021.

All enquires relating to driver licensing are handled by the National Driver Licence Service (NDLS), the provision of which I have delegated to the Road Safety Authority (RSA) under the relevant legislation. My Department does not have access to individual applications.

I have forwarded the Deputy's query to the RSA for direct reply. If he has not heard from them in 10 working days I would ask that he contact my office directly.