Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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137. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the number of driver testers employed in each of the testing categories across the National Driver Licence Service; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36305/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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138. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the current average waiting times for driving test appointments in each of the licence categories; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36306/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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139. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the current longest waiting times for driving test appointments in each of the licence categories; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36307/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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140. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the number of driver testers' contracts due to expire at the end of 2024 and in January 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36308/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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141. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the number of driver testers the National Driver Licence Service plans to recruit by the end of 2025 in each of the licence categories; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36309/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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142. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if driver testers whose contracts are due to expire at the end of 2024 or at the beginning of 2025 will be offered new contracts; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36310/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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143. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the criteria used to decide whether to renew a driver tester's contract; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36311/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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144. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the estimated cost of recruiting and training a newly recruited driving tester; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36312/24]

Verona Murphy (Wexford, Independent)
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145. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the length of time the recruitment process takes for driver testers in the National Driver Licence Service; the length of time the training process takes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36313/24]

James Lawless (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 137 to 145, inclusive, together.

Under the Road Safety Authority Act 2006, the operation of the National Driver Testing Service is the statutory responsibility of the Road Safety Authority (RSA) and the information requested is held by that organisation. I have therefore referred the specific questions to the RSA for direct, detailed reply. I would ask the Deputy to contact my office if a response has not been received within ten days.

To address issues of rising demand and wait times for a driving test, in March 2023 the Department of Transport conveyed sanction for the RSA to recruit up to an additional 75 driver testers on a temporary basis.

More recently, in line with the conditions set out in the 2023 sanction, the RSA submitted a business case to the Department in June 2024 regarding long-term, permanent staffing needs for the service to cater to current and future demand. The Department conveyed sanction the beginning of September for 70 additional driver testing posts on a permanent basis, bringing the permanent sanction to 200. This is more than double the sanctioned headcount in June 2022, which was 100 testers. As a condition of sanction for these additional resources, my officials have requested that a plan is put in place to restore waiting times to the service level agreement of 10 weeks as soon as possible.

The Deputy may wish to note that the RSA has started to publish detailed monthly information on the driver testing service on the CSO website, including the breakdown of waiting times and distribution of testing capacity by test centre as well as details on the number of testers. This information is available at the following link: data.cso.ie/product/RSADTS.