Séamus McGrath (Cork South-Central, Fianna Fail)
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82. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the status of proposals to reduce the driving test wait times at a test centre (details supplied) in view of the fact it is still well above the national average; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [53178/25]

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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Under the Road Safety Authority Act 2006, the Road Safety Authority (RSA) has statutory responsibility for the National Driver Testing Service, this includes all testing and scheduling matters. Accordingly, the information relating to Wilton Driving Test Centre is held by the RSA.

Given the RSA's responsibility in this matter, I have referred the Deputy's question to the RSA for direct, detailed response. Please contact my office if a reply is not received within ten days.

Pending this response, the Deputy will be aware that reducing overall driving test wait times has been one of my key priorities since taking office. To that end I directed the RSA to produce and publish a service recovery plan to meet the 10-week average national waiting time target by September.

I am informed by the RSA that the national average wait time for a Category B test is now 10 weeks. This marks a significant improvement on the 27-week national average wait time reported at the end of April and marks a return to the 10-week service level agreement (SLA). Some centres remain above the 10 week wait time and I am informed by the RSA that it is continuing to work to reduce wait times at these centres.

The Deputy may wish to note that the RSA 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. This information is available at the following link: data.cso.ie/product/RSADTS