Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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263. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport further to Parliamentary Question No. 183 of 16 October 2025, the number of drivers disqualified that resulted in a mismatch being inputted to his Department's driver file record database to date; the number of mismatches reported to date; the procedure when a mismatch has been discovered; if the driver file database is regularly monitored and checks made on each record to verify identical matches to the driver who was disqualified; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57959/25]

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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265. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport further to Parliamentary Question No's 177 to 184 of 16 October 2025, the timeline for his Department to publish more complete data on the manual matching process used by his Department and the RSA to endorse a licence or permit with a disqualification; the date that his Department started its concerted effort in 2025 to deep dive into the area of court disqualification orders received without a driver number attached; and the number of successful attempts to match a driver with a disqualification without the capture of the unique driver number; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57961/25]

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 263 and 265 together.

My Department's National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF) database serves as the official record for driving licence, penalty point, and disqualification information.

The Courts Service notifies my Department of court disqualification orders via an API (application programming interface). This API attempts to automatically match records received to a driver using the details provided by the Courts Service. For records matched in this manner, the licence is endorsed automatically with the disqualification. The records that fail automatic validation by my Department are sent to RSA, who have a contract partner to attempt to manually match the records. If no match is found, a ‘shell’ record is created in the NVDF to track the disqualification. If a match is found, the disqualification is endorsed on the driver record. A licence is only endorsed with a disqualification when there is no doubt about the accuracy of the match. My Department is not aware of any disqualifications endorsed on an incorrect driver record. Legislative changes that came into effect on 31 March 2025 mean that drivers attempting to renew or incept motor insurance policies from that date are required to provide their driver number to the insurer. The insurer then validates this against the NVDF. Any driver numbers associated with a disqualified driver will be flagged and the insurer will direct the driver to request a driver statement from NDLS. It is now more than six months since this came into force and thus far my Department have not discovered any drivers who have had a disqualification applied in error.

Very recently my Department has made a concerted effort to deep dive into this area for recent months in 2025. This is an ongoing piece of analysis and my Department intends to publish more complete data on the matching process by the end of the year, once the analysis noted above is completed.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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264. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the timeframe in which a driver is disqualified in court to when they receive a court disqualification order via an application programming interface (API); the length of time the API is given to attempt to automatically match records received, to a driver using the details provided by the Courts Service; the length of time between failing to automatically match until the records are passed onto the RSA to manually match; the length of time for the RSA to then forward details to its contract partner to attempt to find a match; the length of time the contract partner is given to find a match before a 'shell' record is created; the number of shell records created on the NVDF where a match was found within the disqualification period; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57960/25]

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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266. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport the number of Irish licence and Irish permit holders disqualified in court since 2022 resulting in a shell record being created in the National Vehicle and Driver File (NVDF) database that remains unmatched to the driver record; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57962/25]

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 264 and 266 together.

Each Thursday, the Courts Service submit all disqualification records for the past week to the Department of Transport. This transfer is done via API.

Any records that can be automatically matched are done so within minutes. On Friday evenings, any court disqualifications not matched automatically are processed into a file for transmission to the RSA contractor employed to do the manual matching. This file is sent to that contractor on Sunday evenings, so that it is ready to be worked on on Monday mornings.

All records in the file are either matched or have a shell record created within two weeks of receipt of the file. This means the longest possible time from a disqualification being issued by the Courts to it being assigned to a driver record or shell record is 3.5 weeks.

The table below details the number of drivers disqualified in court from 2022 to 2024 and the number that were matched to a record and those that were unmatched resulting in a shell record. As I have previously advised the Deputy, my Department is undertaking more analysis of the matching of driver records and intends to publish more data in the near future.

Emer Currie (Dublin West, Fine Gael)
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267. To ask the Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport if the Courts Service writes to each driver disqualified in court within 14 days of commencement of the disqualification to inform them of the requirement to surrender their licence or learner permit to the Road Safety Authority; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [57963/25]

Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent)
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My Department is not responsible for the Courts Service. The Deputy's question of the Courts Service notifying drivers of court disqualifications, and whether such notifications make reference to the requirement to surrender licences, is a matter for my colleague, the Minister for Justice.