Eoghan Kenny (Cork North-Central, Labour)
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159. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport for an update on actions his Department or the Road Safety Authority is taking to reduce the backlog in waiting times for drivers who are booking a re-test as of June 2025; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [36821/25]

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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As Minister of State for International & Road Transport, Logistics, Rail & Ports, I wish to advise the Deputy that under the Road Safety Authority Act 2006, the Road Safety Authority (RSA) has statutory responsibility for the National Driver Testing Service.

I acknowledge that current waiting times for driving tests and retests are far in excess of what is acceptable. I would like to assure the Deputy that this is a priority issue for me and that measures are being taken to return the service to the agreed 10 week waiting period.

To support the RSA in increasing testing capacity and improving service delivery, in September 2024 my Department sanctioned an additional 70 permanent positions for driver testers. This increases the total permanent sanction for testers to 200, which represents a doubling of permanent posts since June 2022.

The first tranche of new testers began live testing in April, with further additional testers entering service across the month of July. By September, the RSA expects to have deployed up to its sanction of 200 testers.

As of 28 June, the RSA is reporting that the average national waiting time for a driving test stood at approximately 16 weeks. This builds on the progress to end of May which saw wait times of approximately 21 weeks and is an improvement of almost 11 weeks on the wait time at the end of April of 27 weeks.

This progress has been achieved through a number of positive actions taken by the RSA including around accelerated driver tester training, extended testing hours and management of the booking system.

It is vital that this positive trend continues and that the RSA, at a minimum, meets the targets set out in its published plan for restoring the service to its 10-week average wait time service level agreement target.

In addition, should any deviations from projected timelines arise, these must be immediately addressed with my Department. The RSA has also been instructed to make contingency preparations to deal with any potential slippages that might emerge in relation to this timeline, which should be ready to be activated as quickly as possible if the need arises.